1. Alas, O my people, cling not to worldly things
And let not the branch be pelted with rocks each day;

2. Why, on feast days, see I all brazenly flaunt
Yet the beholder of my secret love eludes my glance?

3. Only because Fortune long cast its snare
And ensared men of this age with its bait;

4. It beckoned to him when he girded himself to follow
And tore my heart asunder when he went its way;

5. Verily, my heart cast off despair when he turned aside
From whom the love-yearnings overflowed - it cast him away;

6. How obey and yet each vying law bids me cling
To his love - my heart disdains and disobeys;

7. How forget him when loss of peerless men
Forbids my heart throughout time to forget?

8. As though we had shared a fervent love and infatuation,
I gazed at him with longing eyes hoping us to meet;

9. So his memory in my heart a stronghold keeps
Since Time, beside him, proved a bitter cheat;

10. Sometimes with a love pure and serene,
I gaze upon the one whom my heart would greet

11. And truly, I refuse all solace from a man
Whose low nature even baseness cannot defeat,

12. Who barters the fullness of his soul for love's supplies
While the noble use their strength God alone to greet;

13. His limbs you see withdrawn, the coward's gait,
Yet out of sight, the lovely one his way will meet;

14. Exhausted grows the world by his refusal
Though he in all things wants compliance complete;

15. Events that profit him not he will evade
But when you need him, he will spurn and cheat;

16. Those who truly love you, theirs a pure affection,
Those who doubt you, theirs suspicion and deceit;

17. To you belongs all that one could wish or desire
Without reproach or fear of impending defeat;

18. I have seen a brother by lineage it's true
Yet no brother was he I chanced to meet;

19. All men alike descend from a single root
Yet distinction of races lies in the winding sheet

20. Alas! for one now gone beyond the burial mound -
I saw him, and now the earth hides him from sight;

21. Not absence makes one a stranger to the loved ones
But he toward whom we leaned shoulder to meet;

22. The same to me, now fallen to evil chance,
Whether time was brief or dragged with lingering feet,

23. Each house will fail us save what death demands
From those long used to see their hopes replete;

24. The youth strives toward lengthening the ropes
Yet towards death go all his steps and feet;

25. Happy should time relax for him its noose
With grim death sharpening behind the cheat;

26. Hiding his hour deliberately though no man knows
When death shall meet him face to face in defeat;

27. Would that death could solve each burning grief
And cast its rod on friend and foe to meet!

28. Morning and eve, our traveling men return;
Not he whose course death hastened to complete;

29. The soul hopes for all travelers' safe return
Save him death snatched to a journey sans retreat.