1. How can new love avail me, when my heart
Is as old as time, as fate decrees?

2. How can my heart feel youthful passion,
When it's a child at love, still nursing?

3. Naught remains in me but a sighing breath,
A painful groan in my ribs' hollows.

4. If recollection comes, it comes with pain;
An old disease flares in my heart anew.

5. Old longing wrestles me, and I'm assailed
By waves of care, anxieties, and gloom.

6. I see a lofty mountain peak, and yearn
To rest thereon, a dweller in its heights,

7. For there my heart will find the peace it wants-
Companionship, pure light, and gentle breeze.

8. There birds will welcome me as one of them,
And gazelles' faces beaming beautifully.

9. Though small, my heart is great with what God wills;
His neighborhood is comfort for the sick.

10. The greatest evil is a mind that's turned
From light, when darkness gathers round so blind.

11. Most frightening is when feelings die away,
And souls and bodies are left desolate.

12. O Time, you trouble my life's peace, and slay
My hopes; bereft, myself I can't redeem.

13. You've robbed me of my youth's carefree joy,
And left me wandering in life's barren wastes.

14. I think of freer days gone by, nights bright
For my heart with stars in darkness' mantle.

15. By them I'm guided, when life worries me,
And memories attack me, ravening clouds.

16. Sorrow has lain me in its painful bed,
As though some hidden serpent's bitten me.

17. Take from me will; quench hell's flames in my heart;
Relax my ribs' taut bonds, for pain throbs there;

18. Weigh down my spirit with its sickness' loads-
There anguish sits enthroned, a resident.

19. Maybe some fleeting chance oblivion
Grants from despair-a loophole ere death comes,

20. Restoring what my heart in mercy gave,
Though racked by fate, magnanimous still.

21. Each day I bow before it worshipfully,
Yearning for that long-suffering tormenter.