Cocks crow and dogs bark --

This is what all men know.

But men with great wisdom

Cannot describe in words

Whence it is that they are formed

With such different voices,

Nor can they find out by thinking

What they wish to do with that.

We may refine on this small point

Till it is so minute that there is no point

To operate on, or it may become so great

That there is no embracing it.

Someone caused it; no one did it,

But we are thus debating about things;

And the end is that we shall find

We are all in error about that.

Again, someone caused it --

Then there was a real Being.

No one did it -- then there was mere vacancy.

To have a name and a real existence --

That is the condition of a thing.

Not to have a name, and not to have real being --

That is vacancy, and that is nothingness.

We may speak and we may think about it,

But the more we speak, the wider

Shall we be of the mark.

Birth, before it comes, cannot be prevented;

Death, when it has happened,

Cannot be traced further.