Wisława Szymborska - An Attempt lyrics

O little song, surely you're mocking me, for even had I gone the high road, I would not have come up roses. Only roses come up roses and no one else. You know that. I attempted to have leaves. I tried to turn into a bush. With held breath—to make it happen faster— I yearned for my enclosure in rose petals. O little song that has no pity on me: I have a single body, immutable; I am an annual—to the marrow of my bone.