| No gleaming temple forever stands — |
| Your idols lay beneath, beneath the shifting sands. |
| No endless darkness, no blinding light, |
| No treasured ideal, not one vice. |
| No sacred law, no holy command, |
| No final verdict to which we are damned, |
| No Armageddon, no final rest, |
| And no paradise beyond our death. |
| For no word of the wise, no law benign, |
| Will ever change the wolf and the lion. |
| All revolution — all salvation, never as they predict! |
| All solutions and all revelations lead a path to conflict. |
| Not one penance, not one resolute, |
| Not one confession, no matter how true, |
| No blood that is split or life cut short |
| In the name of the father, the mother, the cause. |
| Utopia is dead! |
| So what happens as I walk through the ashes? |
| A trial of our blood, our blood and our scars? |
| Well, our questions betray us — our hopes and our fears, |
| Relinquish both, and then you may hear. |
| No dream of the wise, no law benign — |
| Will ever change the wolf and the lion. |