1. If your God did not grant you his gifts
Then may leanness leave your fingers fruitless

2. Yet we are the sons of time that decides all
So from our nature springs no barrenness

3. Doomed affairs, if unfulfilled, still they
Are writs that scourge the back and dock the tail

4. Nor did a muskbuck's bearing musk defend
Its sweet breath from the plunderer's hands avails

5. Your love of this house is prime foolishness
For your blindness, though the cheat hides his secret well

6. I wonder that riders hope for a star
While their souls' concourse is but a crumbling shell

7. A vinegary temper time has brought to bear
Once it gathers force the bones it gnaws bare

8. Greed and need from every side accost a man
So that each of these two threatens to rob and tan