Classic Poem

I have been roaming on for days and days.
Ensnared in days, I wander on and on,
Whole days along my destined roads and ways,
As long as I am able, till I'm gone.

In morning's garden I found flowers sweet;
I trampled many of them as I went,
Yet briars – even more of them I met.
My gains were small, compared with what I spent.

It dawned on me through agony and fears
How blind it is, the universal mind;
Though all night long I listen to the stars
No harmony among them do I find.

Ah man, it is not given you to see
What lasts an hour, and what goes on for aye;
And where you, too, a droplet in a sea,
Are sent to quail, and wherefrom do you hail...

And so with drooping heart and downcast head
Prostrate, I wait and wait, all gloom despite,
For somebody to offer me his aid
To solve the riddle set by dark and light.