Sol 5.6

  1. I was born fearless, enamored of death;

    I hate to blame, and hate to be blamed.

  2. I cast away excess—even the surplus of my wealth—

    and reckon excess in speech a costly debt.

  3. Time’s vicissitudes have suffered at my hands,

    through a keen resolve that fills high ambitions with determination.

  4. Fierce am I: if ever my gaze softened

    toward greed, I would not be counted among the noble.

  5. Then hands would surely come before me laden with gifts,

    hands whose heights no ambition could attain.

  6. I have found God worthier of all hope,

    and sovereignty’s sun—the high-hearted king.

  7. Illustrious: when you test him, you discover in him

    a youth passionately, rapturously enamored of glory.

  8. May God show you what you desire among a people

    on whom you lavished gifts, though they rose to no worthy station.

  9. They were ungrateful for your bounty after want,

    though the face of the earth is never ungrateful to the raincloud.

  10. You brandish your might in secret,

    though, if you wished, you could hew bones apart with it.

  11. You sleep, yet when you doze you know

    how the phantom makes its way into the dream,

  12. and every formidable man whom the horizon covers,

    and who it is that wields the keen-edged sword.

  13. And in many a terror, you take the lions of far-off lands

    for ostriches, when they scatter in fear of it.

  14. For it you drew tight the cords of prudence and patience,

    while the forbearing man sat and stood before it.

  15. When I seek to exhaust your praise in verse,

    I gather gold beads and paired pearls.

  16. Yet I have not risen to the task, though I have wearied my thought

    in describing you: your praise is too exalted to be attempted.

  17. May the nights, then, never rob you of your keen edge,

    and may bliss through them be sweet to you and endure.

Sol 5.6