1. I used to complain of a coquettish beloved, faulting her in my youth and sincerity.
Then her love faded, and time came that we both demanded frank repayment.

2. And my friends bustled urging me, if I were free, to strive for sustenance.
“Hoarding wealth is forbidden you; want seems unseemly in the competent.”

3. So I made myself ready, whenever I was tempted toward riches, to recoil further from them.
Then I went back to love of that gazelle but could find no wide, open place for it in my thoughts.

4. What happened to my heart? What became of my vanished youth after that radiance?
Did my art merely change to another, or did some soul replace my soul?

5. The dawns are still sweetest to the taste and the gazelle Hind most beautiful at dawn.
I had relied on love to aid me against misery. Is there any to help me rest?

6. I accept it, though I have no household that makes me sick or sound.
Passion is better for the literatus than sterile gain, however abundant.