The Unbeing was not, nor yet the Being.
The airy vastness was not spread, nor the heavens set above.
What stirred, what moved? And whence? Beneath whose watch?
Did waters lie, deep-folded in the dark?

Death was not, nor yet the deathless.
No mark was there of night, nor sign of day.
That One did breathe without the breath of wind, By its own will alone, and naught beside it lay.

Darkness wrapped in darkness was in the beginning.
All was a flood without sign or shape.
What stirred within the hollow of the void— That One was born through the fire of will.

Then rose in the first dawn of thought the longing— The seed that was the first.

Wise men, deep in the heart’s seeking,
Found the thread between the Being and the Not.

Their line was cast across the deep—
Was aught beneath it? Was aught above?
Bearers of seed there were, and lofty mights; Below was longing, above the gift.

Who truly knoweth? Who here may speak it forth?
Whence sprang this world, and how came it to be?
The gods came after—it was not their doing.
Then who knoweth whence it arose?

He that looketh from the height, the keeper of all, He may know—or knows he not at all?