Classic Poem

Like the earth kept whole by its clay
and the sky raised up on the earth
and the wind that glides across the sky
and the fire sweeping up on the wind
or water that encounters fire, your nature
is that of the five great elements, for you endure
your enemies and your intentions are far ranging,
you have strength, destructive power, and you are merciful!
Rising from one of your oceans, the sun later descends
into your ocean of the west with the white surf of its waves.
You are king of a fertile country, with towns always prosperous!
You are bounded by the sky! O greatness! You who gave
heaps of food without stinting, of the finest rice,
till the time came when the hundred who were wearing their flower
garlands of golden tumpai and had seized the land perished in the field,
fighting furiously against the five whose horses wore waving plumes!
Even if milk becomes something sour, or the sun goes dark,
or the Four Vedas swerve from the truth,
may you shine on, with no loss, on and on with your unswerving ministers!
May you never be shaken, like Mount Potiyam, like Himalaya
with its golden peaks where long-eyed does sleep
on slopes in the faint dawn near fawns with tiny heads
under the glow of the three fires
in which the Brahmins offer ghee according to their difficult rites.