1. What meadow of spring or valley of my kindred
Have the days made desolate in utter ruin?

2. Passion of youth possessed it; then it learned
To await the sentence of decay and change.

3. Solace forsook it, and the tear descends
From my eyelid, as fire kindling the sigh

4. Of longing. My tears accompanied its woe
With tender grief and passionate regret,

5. Heaping reproach upon the turns of fortune
And chance of love and happy days gone by.

6. Perchance, I may behold it flowering still,
Rich in all sweets and melodies of joy.

7. Yet seeming not the same, with glance estranged,
And mien unlike what once enchanted me.

8. As when in spring-time, kind and bountiful,
Or when in autumn, prudent and discreet,

9. Peace unto it! I share not with the ruins
My grief, nor with the plaint my agony.

10. Alike is my response to call or silence;
Strange is the charm of pleasure and of song

11. Mingled with melancholy and dismay,
Ask then the bright encampment what it knows,

12. And make its forms and wilds thy confidence.
Deem not thy trouble greater than can bear

13. The patient strength of one so sorely tried.
No task upon the dauntless and devout

14. To walk the fiery trail the righteous trod.
Not all unseemly is the stated praise

15. Of one who offers nothing to the mob;
When the praised passes, men of worth will say,

16. Whose was that mantle fringed with honor's robe?
If zeal of serving grasp the outheld robe,

17. Forthwith its folds sweep outward free as air.
Why linger, loose-robed eloquence? Flung down,

18. Thy beauties shame the rose with blushing red.
True inspiration knows no taint or fault,

19. Its nature baffles age and time's decay;
Profound yet simple, intricate yet clear,

20. What lock may bar its truth to willing hearts?
Wisdom in everything, naught strange in aught,

21. To eyes that pierce life's surface and its depth.
Speed, hand, with cooling water to the place

22. Where agony has cried its secret pain.
None but the worthy can array in praise,

23. No trafficker in flattery knows the way.
When one in virtue's garment passes by,

24. Men say, who goes there robed in righteous deeds?
And when ambition doffs that empty cloak,

25. Forthwith it drifts abandoned, shamed and bare.
O peerless plunder, eloquence despoiled!

26. More fair thy beauty than the star-shaped pearl.
Safer than they who cultivate accord

27. Art thou unguarded, for distrust they nurse;
They hide themselves, yet age stamps on their cheek

28. The creeping lines of envy and backbiting.
Thy every byway is a path my feet

29. Have pressed, leading to revered abodes of men.
Chill hearted have I been since first I drained

30. The draft that wrung my soul with cruel pain.
Ye built by hate beneath me, till I grew

31. Content, despised to be the elect of love.
Reproved or praised, to me alike it came,

32. In yours or strange hands was the bitter cup.
Daily ye grace my dish with courtesies

33. Both rare and new, heart-warmed yet insincere.
My heart to you is as the burning coal,

34. To others, as the inmost hearts of men.
No gift of favor do I here request,

35. No share of love, no fortune do I seek;
Rebuke from friends cannot the spirit break

36. Save when it springs from one we hold too dear.
Yet blame not sickness in the suffering man,

37. For he at length must bare his wound to heal.
Had we deemed choking grief good discipline,

38. Our ears had been content with whips and goads.