1. For how long, O Time, has delight turned away?
Will any joy in our life return that we yearn for?

2. For how long, O Time, have you turned from us?
Will you ever bring back what is gone?

3. Farewell to delights until a deceitful flirt
or a heedless critic restores them.

4. I roused the steed of battle in its pasture,
but neither it desired to race nor did the racecourse remain.

5. I emptied the field of youth of its girls,
though I was the most zealous guardian assigned to them.

6. Alas! Our fleeting days of frivolity,
do they vanish never to return?

7. As though I never witnessed the vineyard of delight
in all its sweetness before it was destroyed.

8. As though I never praised the days and life amongst us
when we would revel in pleasure and then grow sober.

9. Many a war have I waged for the wine of revelry
whose perfume mingled with basil I inhaled.

10. The zephyrs of life blow upon us still
and above us float clouds pregnant with bountiful life.

11. And a goblet of wine that enchants with its very sight,
easier to behold unveiled than behind glass.

12. When I coupled it with the ewer, it burst out laughing,
and kissed me from behind its veil.

13. Stolen pleasures taste sweetest when shared
with a boon companion, not a faultfinding critic.

14. I raced with it to the finish and won its length
though no day in its count was longer than another.

15. Tomorrow the prince of frivolity will lead away
the girls of play while I remain heavy of heart.

16. When I recall those delights now it is as though
an actor were miming them for me on stage.

17. By your life! Had I desired I'd not have forsaken youth
for anything, but accepting fate is best.