Oh yellow bittern, I grieve your dying
And your bones stretched out notwithstanding your humour
It isn't want of food, but of the damned drink
That's left you dead on your back
This is worse to me than the fall of Troy
You lying dead on the bare stones
You brought no hurt or harm to anyone
As you preferred wine to well water

It isn't your birds there that I'm lamenting
The cuckoo, the corncrake or the dappled heron
It's my yellow bittern, who was full of heart
And was like myself in style and color
He was forever drinking the draught
And it's said that I am the same way
There isn't a drop I could get that I wouldn't swallow
For fear that I could die from thirst

My love asked me to put down the drink
Or I wouldn't be alive much longer
But I told her that she lied
And I'd live longer if I kept on drinking
Didn't you all see the bird of the long gullet
Who died from thirst a little while ago?
So, my bosom friends, drown your thirst
As you won’t get a drop at all after you’re dead