Classic Poem

With his glittering sword and dazzling feats of war, the man
who never spoke a false word, whose rod of justice never trembled,
who warded off intruding enemies so that the herds of cows
tender to their calves could be at peace in the forest and travelers
with their aching feet could rest wherever they pleased and heaps
of paddy might stand unguarded in the fields, Elini has fallen,
fighting on the battleground! Everywhere you look, the people
that he loved are in anguish like a child who has been abandoned
by the woman who gave birth to it but you, Death!, you who have
no virtues, you have lost more than the world which stands
plunged into grief, the heart of it filled with a pain
heightened by hunger! Like a farmer whose family has fallen
into hard times and so he forgets the good of the fields
which are the source of life and eats his own seeds, if you
had not eaten up this man, how you would have grown
fat wolfing down the lives of his many enemies on the killing field!