1. Oh, how many sorrows have saddened me, their beginnings have pained me,
So I calmed my soul when it worried about its endings,

2. And patience will not be perfected by one who does not practice it,
And one who does not taste anguish will not know anguish,

3. People plunge into words and have tongues,
But the closest of them to all good are their truthful ones,

4. And nothing is sound unless its unseen corroborates it,
And branches only grow from their roots,

5. I see myself distracted by playthings, heedless,
And if not for my soul’s ignorance and its caprice,

6. I patch up from my lowly world a worthless house,
Full of so much commotion and its cracks,

7. If I had hearing, I would hear the call
Of the setting sun to me and its rising,

8. And I missed the chance for truthful commerce for the Hereafter,
Whose markets once enabled me from the hand of profit,

9. And my soul did not lack a day leading it,
To the ultimate aim, and a night driving it.