1. When I saw you and the steamer striving
On its course with legions beyond count,

2. And you waved from afar with your right hand
Surrendering, your banner of victory furled,

3. I was content with your hurried salutation,
While my heart and soul sailed in your train.

4. Send me then a scroll on which to live
By me and by the folded leaves of my form.

5. And O my prince, let no chance escape
When it comes to one whose hope after God rests on his word.

6. Arise and bind up the break of one whose break
None can bind but the joy in him that breeds much envy.

7. Especially as the months of the tryst draw near,
And grace whose course thereafter has no term.

8. And the clerk of erasure, in my affair, stretches out to him
Ere long his hand to cut off the means of livelihood.

9. The fortunate king has no knowledge
Of the state of a page who has no recourse.

10. Does any but Joseph the Truthful remember me
When I am forgotten and none asks after me?