Classic Poem

First I thought of others and only then I thought of him
and so may my heart sink, may my tongue be cut out
and my ears be stopped up like wells in a deserted city!
If it were not for Himalaya touching the sky in the north
where in the cool shade of a takaram tree a yak is sleeping
with his beloved after having fed on bitter oranges and sweet-smelling grass
and drunk from a fresh spring that is filled with waterlilies—
in the south if it were not for the lineage of Ay,
surely this wide world would slide loose and turn upside down!