Who comes imbecile to the world ’mid double danger, groans, and tears;
The toy, the sport, the waif and stray of passions, error, wrath and fears;

Who knows not Whence he came nor Why, who kens not Whither bound and When,
Yet such is Allah’s choicest gift, the blessing dreamt by foolish men;

Who step by step perforce returns to couthless youth, wan, white and cold,
Lisping again his broken words till all the tale be fully told:

Wond’ring the Babe with quenchèd orbs, an oldster bow’d by burthening years,
How ’scaped the skiff an hundred storms; how ’scaped the thread a thousand shears;

How coming to the Feast unbid, he found the gorgeous table spread
With the fair-seeming Sodom-fruit, with stones that bear the shape of bread: