In vanity

In vanity, we inquire into the empty heavens  And witness only birds hunting In vanity, we dive into the sea and the earth  And discover just bones rotting In vanity, we read the writings of the learned And find their footsteps decaying Within you, behind all the clothing of words Look, and behold the eternal tree of knowledge Whose fruits are mankind's untainted ideas  And rests within our hand's reach, beyond the world's edge Inspired by a passage from "The Principles of Human Knowledge" by the Irish philosopher George Berkeley, near the end of the work's introduction.