1. I was asked, "Why did you abandon composing poetry with rhyme
When verse is a garden of joy?"

2. I said, "I see rhyme does harm
And so I refused to damage my soul."

3. They said, "What harm comes to you from it?"
I said, "If you were to ask the shepherd and night watchman,

4. And they came to read it, they would see
In it omens foretelling every ill fate."

5. I said, "What did you find?" They answered,
"We found in it the work of a wizard."

6. I said, "Why did you not buy the poem from me?"
They said, "We do not buy it for a cent."