1. Time has burdened me with its afflictions,
And passed vicissitudes over my life.

2. As if its calamities were determined
Never to let good befall me that it might do.

3. Unceasingly it renews my troubles,
Urging my journeys with them apace.

4. And besets me with an obstacle
Wherewith my body it would debase.

5. When I come to terms with an affair
It destroys that with haste.

6. Had it but joy succeeding sorrow
I could bear that; it were not a disgrace;

7. And therein some benefit have traced;
But nay, save tribulation, its rule.

8. And if I decry living at its end,
I praised living at its start.

9. To God belong our beginnings and ends,
However generous or unjust His part.

10. Would that this were our beginnings,
Speeding to kill our ends!