O What A World Is This!

O what a world is this!

Who made this spinning globe

Where man does toil and wonder about its living crust?

And what have I done with birth?

It gave itself to me and with its gesture

I have sourly melted into shame and guilt,

And aspirations to be great,

And all before the age of twenty-three.

O woe is me, what is this life;

This surely fettled stage,

Left us by our parents’ parents

Who left them no greater place,

But only teachings and experience?

I cannot conform to this

And yet I am a part of this

And to this part I do and must conform;

So this is who and where I am in wretched life,

That spares no care for idle thought

Or aspect to be else.

Yet there in outer sphere

Lies greater truth,

That so lying is ruler and is ruled

In equal consequence and ridicule.

Where do we stand,

We evil-minded man?

‘Tis either pity or ‘tis love.

Who can and dares

Will answer to our plight.

Dedicated to my Spiritual Master, His Eminence Sir George King, who answered the question posed at the end.