1. Not all that you desire comes to pass
And time's transformations are manifold

2. Misfortune may strike in serene times
As pearl droplets flow into sands

3. Patience gives strength to resolve’s steed
To traverse plains and rugged lands

4. Toil is fickle in its reversals
Bringing ascent and decline in turns

5. You may triumph o’er one who defies
Or one held mighty may be spurned

6. Many a hostage lies confined
While like pledges are returned

7. Naught have I seen run such a course
As cutoff as death’s blade discerns

8. How facile is abidance in a place
To which our stillness slowly yearns

9. Let no man feel too safe from passion
For some passions are madness in turns

10. Every epoch betrays some people
What eras do not betray in their turns?

11. When fortune assails a landed clan
Their forts stand against them unspurned

12. Blame the new over what is past
From what has claimed ages in their turns

13. And on them decay makes its way
As if motion itself there sojourns

14. How did we consent to narrow quarters
Or how did eyes therein find rests?

15. Worries encircled us therein
So they are our prisons in those nests

16. No era flows for us
Save bearing mills grinding unrests

17. One lives not without some incident
Occurring or looming as fortune’s bequests