Classic Poem

You descend from Cempiyan with his fierce army and his shining spear,
who freed a bird of its anguish—and you with the power of thunder
blasting into a cave where a five-headed cobra lives with the venom
in its white fangs, a fiery and savage enemy upon a huge
mountain where green vines grow while the lightning zigzags
across the sky, O greatness! you had the force in battle
to destroy the ancient capital, with its walls shielded
in bronze, its cavernous moats crowded with alligators,
its pools of deep water where vicious crocodiles collect
in the dark ranges of the bottom and rush up and snap
at reflections of the lights that men who are standing guard
hold high in the middle of the night! But you did not
consider how wondrous all this was but only
that the king with a harnessed elephant could be found within the city!