1. By the stars and flowers of night when darkness falls,
And dawn's first blush fades at daybreak,

2. By lightning that marches through the clouds' branches,
Sweeping all before it as it goes,

3. Truly the world treats all the wretched unfairly -
It rages, blindly, lacking guidance or goal.

4. We slept on sorrow's bed, anxiously fearing
The blows of fate and all that they foreshadow.

5. Our illness comes from riches after poverty,
As though you'd never seen a blind man groping.

6. So do not seek wisdom from the bribed man's light;
The wise man's eye is blinded when he's bribed.