1. Alas, what was his crime that when memories
Of bygone days of carefree living passed between us

2. And the sweetness of a vacant life, devoid of worries,
And times when status was known and not disowned

3. And the springtime of youth whose beauty graced me
With shade in life spread over me in branches grown,

4. If you would but let one sorrowing recall
Loves that were and would not sorrow ban,

5. ‘You are grown old,’ they said, ‘your youth is o’er’
And I replied, ‘I have but lived this life before

6. To grow the older,’ when the grey appears one day
How fit the thought that man his ways should change each day.

7. Long was my staying after they had gone from me
Those dear ones, and I hoped not again years to see,

8. They were torn from my eyelids’ gaze, guides of my star,
They darkened my heart’s depths that had been bright afar,

9. They took away my griefs, all else beside them nothing,
They closed my eyelids—the world’s scene desiring naught then,

10. Life grew unstable seeming as a captive viewing
What to the prince’s face one day had been accruing,

11. So I am viewed by you in ways you recognise no more
Oh Lord of days whose ways I knew not then before.

12. I roam like boughs made drunk by dew in gentle weather,
Which soft breathing shakes, and rain about they scatter,

13. And lean on fertile soil where penetrating ever
Deep the water glides and wanders without let,

14. As though the zephyrs o’er it poured musk freely, ambergris,
Brooks fed it brimming from their rain, and it grew verdant, bloomed,

15. and bore
Night came upon it, spacious, when the pond grew troubled,

16. As if the rose gardens had blossomed amid their havens
Leaving 'mong their petals trails of perfumes' scented lays.

17. Long drawn out between horizons never greeted
The eye at break of its dawn with proof completed.

18. When the smooth rocks it rubbed and its swelling bubbled
Up, and branches of springs were ready, weak to crack.

19. So dawn would find it mantled with dust and darkened,
As if you'd spread out on it wide carpets patterned.

20. In it all sprightly creatures joyously darted,
An eye that watched the languid glance grow nimble, dwelt;

21. Roaming in trails as though their trains were fashioned
From the gown of a crowned king stern and high statured

22. Plucking at the leafy twigs with its lightning phosphor,
As if it fingered shoon of leather pierced and punctured.

23. With neck as straight as staffs, their heads tossed backwards,
Their hides stripped off them forward, flayed and fractured,

24. With legs like shafts of lances, hocks swelling backwards,
Collapsing on their forelegs—they had tripped and stumbled.

25. I neared him ere the morn, a wide-stretched space untethered,
As the jealous would, with horse that raced and galloped;

26. Once he appeared, his face's youth you'd see
Like clusters of ripe grapes between two twigs new-covering.

27. An alert gazelle, when frightened, his neck and chest expanding,
With haunch behind him spread like scales overlapping

28. And the rein let out freely to his will surrendering
By brother sure and fleet—no fears detaining, doubting,

29. Anxieties attacked me, their unforeseen guests waking,
With a howling wilderness their harbourage forsaking

30. As if their pools were lightning in smooth surfaces shaking
Or sands unfolding and advancing, steam evaporating

31. As night advanced its starry train, we donned a gown of blackness
The end of which was far from clear at morning's starkness.

32. About that band the fate of men circled till they in seeming
Were like the drafts of wine cups brimming over, drunken, reeling.

33. From all this I have spent my scaping years and summits.
All things must pass—I mourn, I sorrow and remember.

34. Once, in July, I steered that fire through Gemini's runnel,
The cloak of stars spread down when Sirius drew nigh.

35. The day's eye had devoured all his shadows,
And he became like the red streaks in dust clouds flying.

36. What enemy did not attack us on our march,
And meet us with bright flashing evil starry and stellar!

37. If you had not ridden too near deeds unforeseen
You'd have met on roughest roads with furthest ends extreme.