What have you done for me? And yet what is there that I could not give you?
Sometimes the Muse descends to wander the ways of earth,
And profiting by the evening hour when the townspeople sit at supper,
Passes by, with laurel wreathing her brow; walks, barefoot, beside the flowing stream, singing immortal verses
All alone like a solitary stag.
And I, though I love that calm retreat,
Cannot always remain in the fountains and caves and deserted hollows among the oaks,
But I cry, at the cross-roads, and in the city streets,
In the bustling market-place and by the doors of the dance halls,
"Who will barter handfuls of blackberries for handfuls of heavy gold and give the flesh of his heart in exchange for a lasting love?"