1. Pass by and journey on, now roar and now whisper softly,
Be harsh at times and sprinkle now and recruit for great deeds,

2. Cry out for help and plead for your Lord’s help when
The nights turn bleak with ill chance,

3. Do not stand still in days of woe, nor feel too safe when times are kind,
When you fear loss may outrun you, seek refuge in lofty thoughts,

4. Humble your proud soul unto death and steer it through peril,
By my life, death is fairer to the free than living in disgrace, abasing oneself before men,

5. What water is this that flows over your free face when you so abase it by asking?
But most of all when time grows harsh to people of plenty and charity,

6. When bounty dies out and clouds of giving are no more,
Few are those among mankind whom you see fit to ask or protecting honor with wealth,

7. The new crescent seems so thin at first in its delicate frame,
Then growing brighter you see it swell into a full moon in the sky no longer a dim crescent,

8. Take comfort, gently rest your body, clad for the night in a shift soft as silk,
Your eyes still wet with dew your limbs loose jointed with sleep,

9. Be diligent in your work, and the earth will be stretched out before you when it is time to journey,
Unswerving, unwavering in purpose, spare and strong like the spear shafts never crooked with handling,

10. Make of abasement a fortress, an excellent fortress for the noble when earthquake shakes the land,
I love not the youth whom time trips and he falls bewildered,

11. Cringing poverty-stricken before the wealthy, bowing before him, face to face and behind his back,
Where is the roaming the horizons far and wide, the traversing of plains and hills,

12. The threading of thin roads where young camels are stalled and lambs and yearlings penned on the meadows green?
People are gone—seek your fortune with your sword or die lean.