It answers

I venture a question:

“What is life?”

It answers (from many mouths) :

A long slow knife.

Another, then:

“And its meaning?”

Suffering and strife.

“Surely, there is more?”

A test of the spirit.

A measure of the faith.

‘Twas not the mud that made the blind man see,

nor the weave of the baskets that fed the multitude.

Faith alone these things will do.