Classic Poem

It is said that even those who are devoid of Righteousness
and slice off the udders of cows or those willing to abort
the fetuses of women wearing lovely ornaments or those
savage people who harm Brahmins may atone for their sins!
But even if the world should be shaken loose at its roots,
Righteousness affirms that no escape ever is possible
for those who through ungratefulness slay an act of kindness!
You whose wife wears choice ornaments! May the god of many rays
no longer rise for me unless, every morning and evening,
I sing of your great and forceful acts, chanting:
“He who assembled all the riches that never diminish
for bards who with honest hearts repeat their requests
in the large, open grove of towering jujube trees
and stuff themselves with balls of rich cooked rice
as does my family which mingles honey with grains of millet
large as the eggs of doves, though they were grown on poor land,
and boils the whole in milk and tears off good cooked meat
from small rabbits—long life to Valavan, our king!”
O greatness! I am nothing at all! May you live for more years
than the many tiny droplets borne in a huge cloud
carried to us by the east wind from the Himalayas where it formed
because of the good that noble men have done,
to pour down upon us with the sweet voices of its thunder!