1. How much do you make time hear your reproaches,
Addressing it though it knows not your address?

2. Do you hope it will show you any kindness,
Letting your youth last as long as you live?

3. Have you not seen it make new things old
And leave the people of this world confused?

4. If longing for the past makes you ill,
Your cure lies in intentions covering the trail.

5. Your concerns are a watcher's, expecting things
That roam strangely, causing alienation.

6. And if the brother of adversity disliked me,
Like the fright of a bird startled awake,

7. A lad seeking eggs on the plain
And asking the crashing waves, not the clouds, for rain,

8. Then in lofty deeds show wisdom and resolution
If you intend thereby to do right,

9. And in the matter of incitement be a fire
That blazes more with the wind’s breath.

10. The straight blade was not polished
Save to direct its edge at necks.

11. Do not long for misery you think
To be a mirage whose pools are sweet.

12. How much dominion is won by courting ruin,
So fear leaves you no confusion?

13. I stopped, filled with doubt,
As the astute may stop when doubtful,

14. As if time’s kindness were harm
So it rewards no deed.

15. Had time firmly grasped me,
That would be, by its nature, wondrous.

16. Drinking wine saddens me
And joy leaves my heart depressed.

17. In time’s nature is a tendency to disappointment
That makes bitterness pass through my mouth.

18. After my people lasted, I was changed
To wolves, not comrades, among companions.

19. I have befriended one who opposes me,
Finding no comrades but books.

20. The lonely ostrich, lacking a friend
When time treats you harshly, is not deprived.

21. I have not felt the world to be confined
Save when I make its breadth narrow with my character.

22. I will wander the deserts with smooth-gaited camels
Whose trotting sets their saddlebags swaying,

23. Seeming, so quick are their forelegs, to speak
With hastening fingers that have seized accounts.

24. They suppose their leader to be a carcass
Whose bridle they think an insect.

25. I travel by night beneath a star of my spear
When one star sets, another rises.

26. The dead man seeking glory
Is like one who attains it and then dies.

27. I am helped against calamities by a staff
Whose pounding makes the roughest ground smooth,

28. A right hand, whenever I rain blows with it
On the temples of an opposing sword, pours them forth,

29. As if on it the fire of the blade were kindled
And were it not for its wet luster, it would melt,

30. As if the sun’s ray were in it,
Though sometimes it is clouded by mist,

31. As if time had turned it gray long ago
Yet its sapwood is still dyed.

32. Its insect seems to be buzzing at dawn,
Stirring when I strike necks with it.

33. We used to be honored in our homelands,
Our selves disdaining injustice and refusing it.

34. We rise in our horizons like stars,
Each reckoned by the demons a shooting star.

35. We endured misfortunes with varying fates,
When the newborn was cast among them, a youth.

36. We surrendered only our lives
And accounts we honor with acceptance.

37. The stars are not exempt from setting
But dust does not deliver their news.