1. No laggard from my love, no slacker;
No fleeting notion ever crossed my mind.

2. And if estranged I be now from all of you,
My heart for you still yearns, to love inclined.

3. No watcher looking on my state of woe,
No friend to understand what plagues my mind;

4. I veil mine eyes from all that’s fine and fair,
And dwell upon the wrongs they have designed.

5. How many tear-drenched eyelids have I seen,
From sickness slain by hands that tyrants bind!

6. No rest, no joy in death has heart of mine,
That, when at peace, is yet with torment lined.

7. Love’s easy to sell when buyers understand
The wares they’ve purchased are beyond their means.

8. The higher that man’s spirit seems to soar,
The lower bows his soul before his dreams.

9. Honors he’s garlanded with woes galore,
Each kindred to the other, twined and twined.

10. Resolve, when flaming in his heart, sets all
Affairs afire; each matter feels Fate’s wind.

11. Delivered am I by wise counsel’s hand
From Time’s injustice and his plots unkind.

12. Yet praise inscribed by me but blackens it;
Its whiteness is my hopes brought low I find.

13. None lofty but those bankrolls bulge and swell;
The empty-pursed know heights they’ll never find.

14. Not of disciples, David’s son, am I,
Who say what most delights the master’s mind.

15. Their goal’s to gain their bounty and esteem,
Like thirsty men who hasten to drink their fill.

16. When praising them, I feel my life has knocked
Against their lifetimes that my death will kill.