WHEN hope decays all pleasures cease to please;

Odious are love and power, and wealth and ease.

The dainty rose joys in the air to sway,

While listening to the bulbul’s murmured lay,

But when the gardener chides the bulbul flees,

Then weary seems the rocking of the breeze.

When fortune frowns, and he to whom I turn

Turns his face from me, then my temples burn,

And, sick with disenchantment and despair,

I hate the very raiment that I wear.

And when I sail upon a tranquil sea,

Praying for wind to waft me speedily,

Should a head wind, a baffling wind, arise,

I view the pilot with unfriendly eyes.

But in my heart is no such thing as hate;

Who hates me he must be a reprobate.