I cannot sing today, my dear, about your locks of gold, for my fat head is feeling queer since I have caught a cold; and when a bard is feeling off, and full of pills and care, and has to sit around and cough, he sours on golden hair. I cannot sing today, dear heart, about your coral lips; the doctor's coming in his cart; he's making daily trips; he makes me sit in scalding steam, with blankets loaded down, and people say they hear me scream half way across the town; he makes me swallow slippery elm and ink and moldy paste, and blithely hunts throughout the realm for things with bitter taste. I cannot sing today, my love, about your swanlike neck, for I am sitting by the stove, a grim and ghastly wreck. And many poultices anoint the summit of my head; I've coughed my ribs all out of joint, and I am largely dead; and so the mention of a harp just makes my blood run cold; some other blooming poet sharp must sing your locks of gold! Some other troubadour, my sweet, must sing to you instead, for I have earache in my feet and chilblains in my head!