Classic Poem

It was as if the terrifying sun, which is swollen
with virulent anger and never abandons its usual course
as it soars up to disperse the darkness spread through the sky
glittering with stars, and the moon with its soft light
both fell to the earth when you fought against them and they died
on the battlefield where pain in endured—those two kings
of great, intractable force who had sworn an oath—and you
took their royal drums bound with straps of leather! But then,
O Celiyan! the firm joint of your spear was saved from breaking
and ruin through being hurled at enemies lingering around you,
when you saw the women with gleaming faces, anguished new widows
gone out of their senses, beating their lovely breasts into pain,
wailing without end, cutting off their masses
of soft black beautiful hair like dark glistening sand.