If God should change the water in the sea To precious balm, and all the land to gold, And if, as he well could, he offered me All this for ever, mine to have and hold, On one condition, that my lady be Rapt from the world, I’d say: “No thanks, Sir, you Can keep the lot.” For rather than agree, I’d suffer horrid death, and this is true. I wouldn’t sell two hairs from her sweet head Against her will, not if the gold they’d bring Would burden thousands in a camel train. I hope she will believe what I have said, For then the songs to her that I still sing At dawn and dusk will not have been in vain.
translated by: C.H. Scott and Anthony Mortimer