Classic Poem

During the day, may the bards crowd around the festive
sessions of your court and their dark heads and tangled hair
turn radiant with fragrant garlands of gold, beautifully
crafted of thin plaques fashioned in the shape of lotuses
tempered in the fire and threaded onto fine pounded wires!
And when bards no longer surround you, then may your chest
where sandalpaste dries be encircled by the arms of your women!
And as the royal drum with its pleasing resonance is beaten
within your courtyard of which no one ever tires, may you be untiring
in your ceaseless attention to punishment for the evil and benefit
for the good, and may you never take the part of those who say,
“There is no good in doing good, nor any evil in evil!”
Happy are those who cleave to your weapon, who have received
a fine, flourishing land where those whose work
is chasing away the birds that light on fields of paddy
cook fish from the inlets on a fire of fallen palmyra leaves,
toss off strong toddy and, not yet satisfied, shake young coconuts down!
There is no need for them to live like your enemies
whom, out of your mercy, you permit to inhabit houses only
huts on four stilts with their thatched roofs of arrowroot!
May the virtue of compassion mark your actions, resulting
in easy giving by your people to those who may come to them!
In this world where they who take part pass through
as actors might at a festival, may those who surround you
be festive as they should be and may
the wealth that you protect be the source sustaining your good name!