Rhyming Ecclesiastes: Chapter 6

Rhyming Ecclesiastes: Chapter 6

Another evil I’ve seen ‘neath the sun,
and this weighs heavily upon mankind:
God gives some people honor, wealth, and goods,
their heart’s desire, lack none of that, they would
but God does not grant them ability
to them, enjoy, and strangers what they’ll feel:
enjoyment of what they once had instead.
A grievous evil, this is meaningless.

A man, a hundred children, he may have,
and many-numbered are the years he lives;
yet it’s no matter how long is his life
if his prosperity, joy, won’t provide,
his burial has no propriety,
a stillborn child is better off than he.
It comes, no meaning, darkness, it departs,
its name is always shrouded in the dark.
Though it ne’er saw the sun, knew anything,
than that man has more rest compar’tively–
e’en if, a thousand years, twice o’er, lives, he,
fails to enjoy it, his prosperity.
Do not all men to the same place proceed?

For everyone, their mouth, their toiling strife,
yet never satisfied, their appetite.
What, over fools, advantage, have the wise?
What if they knew how to conduct themselves,
the poor, ‘fore others, they could gain some wealth?
It’s better that, the thing the eye will see,
than how the appetite roves ceaselessly.
This too is meaningless, like chasing wind.

Whate’er exists already has been named,
and what humanity is has been known;
with someone stronger, no one can contend.
The meaning, less, more words upon the tongue
and how would that e’er profit anyone?

For who knows, for a person, what is good
in life, his days, both meaningless and few,
they, like a shadow, all them will pass through?
Who can inform them, underneath the sun,
what there will happen after they are gone?