1. Long has been my waiting, and patience has wearied me.
All my life's hopes are severed, from everything they used to be.

2. My assumptions proved false, my efforts went astray,
And my own sayings against me, are written to someday pay.

3. I had mastered literature, since before my frame was built,
And before my limbs and members, were together soldered and gilt.

4. But the more I excelled in rhyme and eloquent diction,
The more barren and infertile became my condition.

5. Would that I'd never been created, nor lived to see,
The misfortunes and sorrows, that have stricken me!

6. Would that I had abandoned learning, and never spent,
My time preserving knowledge, that my mind so sorely rent!

7. Would that I had lived without glory, books or lore,
Dragging the train of my ignorance, amid the common and poor!

8. Where youth was wasted on "perhaps" and "maybe" and "if"-
Worldly hopes the young are granted by fate's gentle whim.

9. My life passed fruitlessly, with no achievements made,
Save trifles my two palms could obscure when displayed.

10. Can an eager waiter trust the promises of a cheat,
Except with lies and guile he'll someday face defeat?

11. Alas! I'll never attain what I hoped for in a time,
That lifts the wicked and foolish, the vulgar and slime.

12. I beg God's forgiveness for verse that was never wise,
And poison I called ambrosia, to the faultless and wise.

13. For praises that turned to dispraise, and shamed the just forever,
Becoming obligations no fair and thoughtful believer,

14. Could ever fulfill or sanction, without sin or blight...
For lies and fabrications, spread in pages better unwritten,

15. And hollow flattery, truthfully but mockery and spite...
For fanciful boasting that lent the coward valuation,

16. As heroes in the ranks of the brave and bold of nation...
For decorative rhythms I used to sing vice's praises,

17. And weave wickedness and blasphemy with elegant phrases...
For self-importance branches, whose fruits I failed to reap,

18. Save waste, negligence and loss, I now remorsefully weep...
For arrows aimed at my opponent's heart in debate,

19. That I positioned high but fell from their lofty place...
For eloquent ideas in my work that sought perfection,

20. But rang hollow when put to test, devoid of true reflection...
For linguistic pyrotechnics, vaunted for eloquence sake,

21. When cooler minds would better truth and wisdom take...
For reckless fervor and zeal, leading far from the right way...

22. For wanton impropriety, that passed proper bounds each day...
For needless insults to please doubters proud and vain,

23. That but bruised my soul, and no worthy object could gain...
For all I said and declared, no prize have I ever held,

24. No high position attained, no wealth my coffers filled...
No compensation given, for what falsehoods I told,

25. Save stalled promises and payments, deferred and withheld...
Often I was told to seek what station and wealth I desired,

26. With no coin or possession required to be hired...
I said God grants me my needs, without petition or plea,

27. As He apportions all creatures their ordained destiny.
For He decides for all that lives, what weal and woe,

28. What riches or poverty, ages short or long bestow...
If He wills, with but a thought, He alters the very age,

29. And moves all time itself through history's turning page!