1. If you say that my nearness and my distance
Are all the same to you, and do not know

2. What I can offer, though my gifts are plain,
Can you be fair, if I make known my bounty?

3. Truth will not hide, though I say naught but judge
Your kindness one day, in both joy and sorrow.

4. After your veil has thrust me from your heart,
Though once my heart held neither man nor distance.

5. Why am I exiled now, when I have called
So long and you came never slow to my call?

6. We mingled like the boughs and blades together
Yet now are parted, sheath and sword disjoined.

7. Is this in earnest? Do you jest with me?
How oft a jest becomes grim earnest in the end!

8. Gratitude endures no lasting pacts with those
Whose troth itself is but a transient thing.