We stand in trepidation, viewing the plain before us,
Where we have not gone before,
Where dust obscures our vision and sandstorms block our path,
Out in the wilderness there are no maps.
No system of navigation, no certain aids to utopia,
Wherever that is.
Instead the snake seeks to devour us,
Eating, first money, possessions,
Then when nothing is left, our souls,
Consuming all with huge need
A hunger multiplied past all reckoning
The snake spreads a bitter seed.
Past the snake there is the gap,
The abyss rending woman from man,
Like water and duck,
Formed of fear of what may come,
When man, driven by the dust,
Must succumb to desire,
Be she beauty or hag she knows fear,
That when his manhood must,
He will possess what is not his - her.
Past the gap the battleground,
Where former friends will fight,
When each the others fortune see,
And though till now they know what is right,
Now they know but treachery,
As, driven by longing for what they do not have,
They must destroy their friends, in mad frenzy,
Whilst others still harbour grief,
Gainst those who have what they have not,
And hate, like parasitic lice,
Grows with each green look.
Next the terrible fire that does descend,
Transforming sheep to wolf,
Lamb to vicious cur,
Burning all with equal fury,
And leaving only ash,
For sometimes just the slightest jibe,
The greatest hate incurs,
And at our comrades we must, blinded, lash.
Next the valley, where to live we have but to hide,
Save some remember their greatness, and cannot,
For to some the greatest enemy is inside,
When your greatness is all you have got,
Your heart and soul are beset with rot.
Sins I hear you cry - but wait,
Of the seven one is missing yet,
And why need we maps of such a plain -
Save to escape and never return again?
And I can answer both with one small word,
Sloth.
For do we not yet realise,
That sloth binds us to this land,
Where snakes and pits and battles abound,
The plain is all that’s truly free,
And yet we are so blind, we cannot see.
Some men ride forth on horses of tomorrow,
And though I grudge them not their sorrow,
I know they are the heros of the day,
For without enterprise we fade away,
For when the sun is no longer warm,
For when we have no shelter from the storm,
For when all we hold dear is gone,
And when each, desperate, takes what he can,
That, my friend, is the death of man.