Pleasure is a freedom-song,
But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height,
But it is not the deep nor the high.
It is the caged taking wing,
But it is not space encompassed.
Aye, in very truth,
pleasure is a freedom-song.
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart;
yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.
Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all,
and they are judged and rebuked.
I would not judge nor rebuke them.
I would have them seek.
For they shall find pleasure,
but not her alone;
Seven are her sisters,
and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.
Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for
roots and found a treasure?
And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs
committed in drunkenness.
But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.
They should remember their pleasures with gratitude,
as they would the harvest of a summer.
Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted
