Classic Poem

We took what he offered us, the fried meat
dripping with ghee as when drops of rain
shower down on a lake of water and we ate
the roasted meat pierced through by the skewers!
And into white cups where there was already meat,
he had cow's milk poured for us to fill them
to the top! Other than the sweat from eating
this heated food, we knew nothing of the sweat of work!
My lord was generous so that he would thereby gain fame!
His fields are full of many blossoming flowers that grow
among the stretches of tall sugarcane that enclose his rice paddies.
On his meadows where his many herds of cows graze on the grass,
fierce fortresses rise with their bowmen.
From his ocean, branches of mastwood are washed into gardens
where people stand and count the ships brought by the wind.
His salt pans swarm with the salt merchants who leave for a fine country
with tall mountains, there to shout the price of their white,
small-grained salt. Such is the good land that is ours, we
called “Fighters” by caste but we do not fight!
Let the Silver Planet rise in the east and then move westward
or let it rise in the west and then move toward the east
or let it appear in the north and then move toward the south
or let it rise in the south and remain there without moving!
Let the Silver Planet stand anywhere it wishes!
But may his projects prosper, he who knows what we need!