Are there days behind your back, O man, that you would wish returned to you? All of them drew you like silk, and remained behind you like cobwebs. Like honey they received you; like stench you sent them away. All are brimful of deception and sin.
Behold, all the pools beneath the moonlight look like mirrors. And all the days, lit by your light-mindedness, look like mirrors. But when you stepped from one day to another, the false mirrors shattered like thin ice, and you waded through dampness and mire.
Can a day whose gates are morning and evening be a day?
O light-bearing Lord, for one day my soul yearns, torn asunder by deceptions: for a day without gates, out of which it sank into the shifting of shadows. For Thy day, which I called my own day, when I was one with Thee.
Is there happiness, O man, behind your back, that you would wish to return? Of two mouthfuls of the same sweetness, the second is the more cloying. From yesterday's happiness, set out upon today's table, you turn your head away in tedium.
You are given only moments of happiness, to grieve you with the memory of true happiness in the bosom of Him Who is unchangeably Happy, and ages of unhappiness, to waken you from the drowsy samsara of deceptions.
Lord, Lord, my only happiness, art Thou preparing a night's lodging for Thy battered pilgrim?
O Lord, my unaging youth, in Thee shall my eyes bathe, and shine with a radiance beyond the sun's.
The tears of the righteous Thou dost gather with care, and with them Thou makest the worlds young again.