Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea

  or walked in the recesses of the deep?

   Have the gates of death been shown to you?...

     What is the way to the abode of light?

       And where does darkness reside?

         Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?

           Tell me, if you know all this.                                    


                         When I can look life in the eyes,

                         Grown calm and very coldly wise,

                         Life will have given me the truth

                         And taken in exchange---my youth.