1. O you who live softly in fleeting joy,
Whether willing or not it will fade from you,

2. Events make the free leave
Their homelands, and birds their nests,

3. I had not heard of prose which gives
Pleasure to one's hearing and sight,

4. Until a letter came from you smiling
With every word and meaning like pearls,

5. Your words were blossoms in their finery
And your meaning was fruit in its clusters,

6. Competing until both attained the goal in eloquence,
By God, from a fruit that outstripped the blossom.