1. Wretched is he whom dark nights have afflicted
With wakeful misery that worries have pricked

2. A night has befallen him, so dark it seems
The earth is drowned, the stars have been eclipsed

3. Where are you headed, o wanderer with hesitant steps
With lightning to left, or storm to right that lashes?

4. I saw you on the sea of darkness as though
A voice calls you to the unknown shore it beckons

5. You tread the gloom like arrows, and the stars wander
Asking: Who is that hapless risk-taker?!

6. The beasts flee the echo of his steps
And the wolves shun him, yet shunners keep near

7. As if the god of evil raids the earth
Or the plague crawls, with its icy chill creeping

8. Goodness! Never did the earth bear his like
Nor roamed its lands or gloomed vales his figure

9. The soil fears his footsteps, and he fears it
Between them creeps the gloom, each too frightened

10. What secret lurks in the darkness, concealed?
Does his heart's plight reveal no tidings?

11. Answer me, outcast of earth, for longing
From the unknown draws me toward you, doting!

12. That specter echoed a beloved voice
To me, like tunes echoed from viols strumming

13. He said: Yes I'm the outcast, and my secret
Shakes hearts with tremors and quakes alarming

14. Do you ask the planets about me, when
Dark clouds and thunder-crackers strike me, harming?

15. Yes, my essence is obscured from your eyes
But hearts, my savior, are intertwining

16. I'm but one of earth's people who lament
My torment, while misfortune keeps befriending

17. This wailing, waves and gloom were not to frighten
A soul that spurns all it encounters during

18. To it, dawn or darkness knitted thick, the same
In the veil of gloom all tightly hemming

19. The earth was evil's cradle long before
We lived, long before reptiles were threading

20. It fed on victims' flesh to fertile grow
And drank a torrent of blood wildly spreading

21. Alas no blood of ours can quench its thirst
Would that tears in floods could wet its bedding!

22. I have a tale that wrenches hearts when told
Beyond any bard's skill at portraying

23. I called for freedom of thought among throngs
Whose culture was a false, twisted learning

24. Who believed that living was but to indulge
And its heights were trinkets and trappings discerning

25. When the light of truth shone, they shut their eyes
Saying: Where is the promised clear burning?

26. I'm astonished at reason, supposedly free,
Yet tangled in illusions concerning

27. Truth is found in the humble cottage, give it life
Not what the lavished palaces are ferreting

28. While the palace's feelings are cheating
I'm tired of life, and can see no option

29. Except the cup I'm busy perusing
Is genius rejected and scorned in the East?

30. Do bright stars suffer misery enduring?
They roam horizons as though they were

31. Camels a hand had misguided, wandering
Prey in the desert, no oasis to gentle,

32. No sheltering dale with shade massing
In me there lies a resentful heart engulfed

33. By bonds pouring from my blood outpouring
My sorrows made it sickly and miserable

34. As I ventured on in the caverns of daring
Like an eagle struck mid-flight by an arrow

35. Yet flapping its wings though blood escaping
I came to this place shaken by yearning

36. For the past days of youth gaily cavorting
I murmur to childhood and teens fancies

37. Diverse, all of them whimsical sporting
I bid them farewell before we part

38. While lamenting heart is regretting and hurting
To where thought grows free, its truths scattered

39. By tongues and pages freely disporting
Perhaps some land beneath unfamiliar skies

40. Where no kindred appreciated my working
Will let me live free in thought, shouting my views

41. Whether times favor me or misfortune