Classic Poem

O the sadness! O mansion of my lord, where the doors were never closed!
The raised verandah with its worn floor where the finest of rice was given
away without end and cups of liquor were never left empty, the bees
hovering over them—it is now like a boat in the bed of a dried-up river!
O I have seen it! May my eyes be ruined! Within you there was the sizzling
of lamb's meat cooking in a pot with heated ghee, like the pained moaning
sound of an elephant in rut in the royal palace overflowing with wealth
of the Protectors of the World, so that the tired eyes of strangers
arriving would open wide, in the old days! But they have vanished now!
The lord who harried the cattle raiders, those primitive and powerful archers,
so that the owl's harsh voice called his kin of other owls to a feast
on the dead, the lord who returned from raids wearing fragrant basil
that hangs down like the udders of heifers, the proper ornament
as the learned well know, he who returned right here with the herd,
that hero with his victorious spear is gone and now he has become
a memorial stone. Because of this, like his wife who mourns
all alone, who has shaved off her hair in the anguish of widowhood
and had her ornaments stripped away,
you too have turned wan and you have lost all that at one time adorned you.