Classic Poem

“May your sons live long who wear their sounding anklets,
whose mouths are as lovely as coral, who were born of the woman
with fine ornaments, with divine purity, on whose breasts
a shining necklace lies like a waterfall descending
a great mountain, your woman who desires you!” With words like these,
I have praised and celebrated you, my lord whose chariot is strong!
While my uneasy heart, due to its abundant longing, speaks of you
even in my dreams because it is happy, overjoyed to have seen
your riches like those of the god who rests on the banyan tree,
lord of the spear! I say my farewell. May your garland flourish!
Throughout the entire breadth of the cool land of the Tamils,
you make your enemies bow down and you take what they have
as your spoils and enjoy it, you whose fierce strength is hard
to subdue! And your sons are just like you! May they possess
the great generosity of their ancestors who always cut down
their enemies and seized their finely fashioned ornaments
and with them filled your great city already bulging with gold!
May you live long, with your days and your years increasing more
than the water of the great ocean dense with waves, than the sand
in that ocean, than the drops of the rain in the trailing,
lofty clouds! May you prosper to the fullest! May you be happy with your
good name and all the wealth you wish for, as time and time again
you look upon your grandchildren! O great being! I feel anguish
because of my desire for your kindness! I am like a bird craving
drops of water, in a distant country where I have no kin at all!
I am accustomed to the shade your feet offer and even living
here I am there every day! Do not forget me! Hero with your swift horses!