THE RIDDLE OF LIFE

by Abdullah Quilliam

Birth, life and death, three potent words, What is it that they spell? Our entrance in, our life upon, Our exit and our knell.

Is that, then, all that is compris'd Within those words so said? And doth the span of passing scene Cry "Finish'd" when we're dead?

If such be all, alas for us! Poor creatures of an hour, That bloom unseen, that die forgot, Like passing of a shower.

Our days but few, our cares so great, And pass'd in toil and strife; Our life a span, under a ban No blessing, then, is life.

But if the moment of our birth As we believe it be -

Is not just entrance upon earth, But immortality;

Then toil and care and meagre fare, While on the earth we stand, Is but precursor, but the path That leads to other land.

Then sound of knell doth only tell Of life begun for ayeThat perfect life, sans care and strife, In the eternal day.

(October 16, 1904)