Capitolo 51
1138. Him has called the "poet of penitence", and a dark turn was given
to his/her thought from an unhappy affection of love in his/her youth. Some rooms
of one of his/her poems raced this way:
Sleepless, on my bed the hours that I number,
And, rising, you look for the house of God, while sleep
Lies heavy on the eyes of men, and dreams encumber
Their souls in visions of the night.
In sin and the folly my first years passed,
Because I have shame and the arrears of the life
Now strive to pay, the time my torn wounds
You/he/she has been my day food and night.
* * * * *
Short it is the life of man, and full of care and the pain,
This way and that he turns some ease to take in loan,
Likes to a flower that he blooms, and on the tomorrow
You/he/she has gone--a vision of the night.
As ago the weight of sin my soul oppresses,
Because God's law I too often infringe;
I cry and sigh, with torn wounds of the bitterness
My bed that I sprinkle the whole night.
* * * * *
My youth lowers likes a shade that is thrown,
More express of the wings of eagle my years badminton fast,
And I don't remember my past of cheerfulness,
Or from day or still from night.
Proclamations us then a fast, one holy day,
Face pure our sin hearts, the wish of God respects,
And to him, with humiliated spirit you pray
Incessantly, from day and night.
We still feel his/her words: "You my art really,
My grace is thine the refuge of my throne,,
For me I am thy Savior, me alone;
Bear but patiently this night!"
But his/her many hymns of what they won a permanent place in the prayer-book,
it is not always sad. Often they is warm with hope, and there is a lilt
around theirs which is almost cheerful. His/her secular and principal poem, "The Topaz"
(_Tarshish_), it is in ten parts, and it contains 1210 lines. You/he/she is written on
an Arabic model: it doesn't contain rhymes, but it is metrical and the same