1. I was ignorant, does man gain fortune through striving
Or is fortune a mystery, veiled by fate?

2. And is it as they said, nobles with pure intent
Who build their homes while others meet misfortune?

3. Why then should sustenance be granted to the supplicant
Yet denied to one of steadfast soul?

4. I contemplated this life and was startled
By people who in crowds are domineering and crushing

5. With no difference but that this one is devious
Full of affectation while the other brazen

6. Some thought that poetry needs
Poverty that stirs the emotions

7. That the yield of luxury is barren, languid
While the yield of misery blossoms and thrives

8. As if a sense of life and living it
Seeks the taste of life's calamities

9. But when such thoughts are seen to be false
Among a people supportive of art

10. No people live a life of luxury
That inspires what the poet depicts

11. Rather in a humbled nation
Humility prevails, commanding and prohibiting

12. It was pleased by the poet's misery
By verse scattered with afflictions

13. Sorrow has tremors, so does joy
Some opposing others, some showing sympathy

14. Just as an ode embodied sorrow sublimely
Another oozes with the joys it depicts

15. We delight in verse over which a tear flowed
When a pensive mind wrings out essence

16. Yet it escapes us that what gives pleasure
Is tender hearts melted into water and air

17. How much the keen heart needs a life
That preoccupies thought and sets the mind afloat

18. Many a fertile mind was struck barren
By it, slain of talents, destitute

19. Far apart are an artist engrossed in art
And another lost in the eddy of life

20. Misery may befall bliss a passing visit
Like a stranger passing through, a fleeting traveler

21. But misery that broods weighed down
Cast its staff so it is lethal and poisoning