Classic Poem

It was not yet dawn but I had already been woken from my bed
by the cock with brightly spotted feathers as the cool dew
settled in. And I was standing by his high gate, beating
my small kinai drum so that its slender sounding-sticks
resonated as I praised his many plowing oxen and lauded
his glory! Driving away the pain of my poverty that has made
my body so thin, he showed a desire for us to approach
his well-guarded palace and to have me drink from a cup of fine
fragrance, the toddy topped with honey so it seemed like a waterlily
unfolding a closed, tender bud. He dressed me in silken clothes sewn
with ornaments past all price, so well embroidered with gleaming flowers
it seemed a single flow, like the inner sheath of a stalk of bamboo
or a snakeskin, and then he laid himself down on a soft bed
while his loyal woman hugged him from behind, her curving waist
adorned with elegant ornaments, her navel lovely and round …
leaving me . . . . . . . . looking . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . I am a man who has died and who has then been
reborn and so I have no intention of going off to sing the fame
of other kings whom the bards praise in song! He is the only one
for me, Aviyan, the master of swift chariots, overlord of the forests
where there are many hills rising up . . . . . . . . . .
… where a white lamb circles around the small teats of its mother,
drinks her milk, and then goes off frisking with a white-faced monkey!
He will never fail me! Why should I be afraid,
even if as an ill omen the Silver Planet should rise in the south?