THE DAUGHTER. [Receives the roll, but reads without looking at it] Well, by me it shall be spoken then:
"Why must you be born in anguish?
Why, O man-child, must you always
Wring your mother's heart with torture
When you bring her joy maternal,
Highest happiness yet known?
Why to life must you awaken,
Why to light give natal greeting,
With a cry of anger and of pain?
Why not meet it smiling, man-child,
When the gift of life is counted
In itself a boon unmatched?
Why like beasts should we be coming,
We of race divine and human?
Better garment craves the spirit
Than one made of filth and blood!
Need a god his teeth be changing——"
—Silence, rash one! Is it seemly
For the work to blame its maker?
No one yet has solved life's riddle.
"Thus begins the human journey
O'er a road of thorns and thistles;
If a beaten path be offered.
It is named at once forbidden;
If a flower you covet, straightway
You are told it is another's;
If a field should bar your progress,
And you dare to break across it,
You destroy your neighbour's harvest;
Others then your own will trample,
That the measure may be evened!
Every moment of enjoyment
Brings to some one else a sorrow,
But your sorrow gladdens no one,
For from sorrow naught but sorrow springs.
"Thus you journey till you die,
And your death brings others' bread."
—Is it thus that you approach,
Son of Dust, the One Most High?
THE POET.
Could the son of dust discover
Words so pure and bright and simple
That to heaven they might ascend——?
Child of gods, wilt thou interpret
Mankind's grievance in some language
That immortals understand?
THE DAUGHTER. I will.
THE POET. [Pointing to the buoy] What is that floating there?—A buoy?
THE DAUGHTER. Yes.
THE POET. It looks like a lung with a windpipe.
THE DAUGHTER. It is the watchman of the seas. When danger is abroad, it sings.
THE POET. It seems to me as if the sea were rising and the waves growing larger——