How many men have tried?
How many men have died?
How many men have starved, been scarred
By the spiritual fire?
An unseen desire
To be made whole.
How many men have sensed reality
Beyond the mind’s banality?
And stopped to pause
Sufficiently for the cause
To reveal its mystery and mastery of life.
How many men in love and hate
Have laughed and wept at humanity’s fate?
How many men have laboured in vain
To equate love and beauty
With pleasure and pain?
How many men have cursed?
How many men thirst
For the insurmountable truth
That severs the thread
Between living and dead?
How many men succeed and fail?
Measured in years or eternal scale.
How many men have finished the race?
None – except Man
Through heavenly grace.