Seven years Jacob served as a shepherd for Laban, lovely Rachel's father, laboring not for the father but anxious only for her as his reward. - Luís de Camões

[But] to sing of your face, a composition
in itself sublime and marvelous,
I lack knowledge, Lady, and wit and art.

O, how I choke in uttering my disgrace!
Thinking I her embraced whom I did seek,
A mountain hard I found I did embrace.
Overgrown with trees and bushes nothing sleek.
Thus (grappling with a mountain face to face,
Which I stood pressing for her angel's cheek)
I was no man: no but a stupid block
And grew unto a rock another rock.

<small>To this old song:
Partridge lost his quill,
there's no harm won't befall him.</small> Partridge, whose winged fancy
aspired to a high estate,
lost a feather in his flight
and won the pen of despondency.
He finds in the breeze no buoyancy
for his pennants to haul him:
there's no harm won't befall him. He wished to soar to a high tower
but found his plumage clipped,
and, observing himself plucked, pines away in despair.
If he cries out for succor,
stoke the fire to forestall him:
there's no harm won't befall him.