Classic Poem

We must kill if we would live:
This is the first of certainties:
God leaves us no alternative
Despite the preachers' sophistries:
Let them argue as they please
The jungle law is over us!
For any man who cares or sees
This World of ours goes ruinous.

We must weak and ugly grow:
This is the worst of certainties:
'Tis a pretty thing to be young, I know,
And life is full of pleasantries:
But age and pain will bend the knees
Of the strongest, fairest, best of us:
No bodies reach beyond disease:
This World of ours goes ruinous.

We must all in the graveyard lie:
This is the last of certainties:
Strange horizons some descry,
That to the mass are fantasies:
But take your choice of theories
To meet an end so villainous,
In this at least each one agrees:
This World of ours goes ruinous.

Brother, I see too much to think
That dust is the utter end of us:
But oft from what's involved I shrink:
This World of ours goes ruinous.