1. I lost sleep over youth for a star's rising
I call it growing old though still a lad

2. It was enough vexation for my soul when it appeared
And greater vexation when it goes away

3. And were it not that parting was hard on the lovesick
I would have met the damsel with it turning grey

4. So I did not lack a mediator there with it
To a hope though I did not stop loving

5. Strange is the greying of a beloved's hair if it spares you
My life went and its blackness turned all grey

6. I disliked, due to its lights, brightness until
I disliked the shine of brightness, the striking one

7. And I shunned, out of hatred for a thing, a thing
That would have a like or relation

8. And which greying hair except a warner?
And which rapture when examples have turned orators?

9. And I was laden with its load without being asked in marriage
As though I was made to carry it all helpless

10. And I grew weary of youthful pursuit
And how so when it emerged a watcher?

11. And I said to the lads, grey hair is disgrace
Enough for callow youth to turn grey in disgrace

12. So do not aspire to my cheeks, o lad
Innocent, or deceive me, o decrepit wary one

13. For better than the dove of grey hair to me
Is a raven of youth used to warbling

14. It scents itself among the lovesick
And so dispenses with the musk scent of perfume

15. And the gazelle's eye feeds on its grey hair
To which it talks amorously, the gazelle its darling

16. And between the eye and the hair there is an intimacy
Precious that calls for kinship and nearness