Classic Poem

You roam around searching for lives, Death with your roar
as loud as monsoon thunder, you who can never be sated!
That man of majesty has no fear of your coming, he who poured
the ritual water as he gave away vessels of value to Brahmins versed
in the many noble sacred texts as they perform the sacrifices,
he who gave more generously than a mother
to many men, who gave an abundance of elephants
and crisply gaited horses to those who sing
of his munificence, who with fondness granted many rolling chariots
to those who sought shelter at his feet
which had put an end to enemies! When he holds
his lengthy audiences in the company
of bards wearing their lotus flowers
of gold and the singing women with their garlands of fashioned gold,
where his women of great purity and exemplary patience calmly carry
filtered and mixed toddy in gold pitchers and pour it out as if it were
amrta for people to drink, his women whose glances are like those of the deer,
whose brows bend like bows, whose tongues when they speak loudly seem
to fear their teeth which are like little thorns and as they move,
their belt strings slide down, he does not forget, you do not have to tell him
of the mutability of this world which does not endure, you do not have to tell him
because he has studied all of it, all that he already knew …
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . he has knowledge!