1. Lead on, my youthful friends, when I am gone,
For this is your sun rising now.

2. Reason flees when passion reigns;
Were youth wise, it would lack youth’s zest!

3. How often night with woeful heart complains:
“Does it not heed my call at all, the dawn?”

4. You entered love’s domain to gain your ends:
That domain is not meant for your ends!

5. Were love proclaimed, it would become a crime.
Or, if it severed ties, itself a tie.

6. No meaning can my life destroy. Its form
Is sadness and illusion all the while.

7. Wretched the youth whom love has never blessed
Nor wronged so he might vent his grief!

8. That, O lovers, was my advice to you
Before you slip and take a fall.

9. If I could not assist myself, at least
My word will benefit all lovers else.