Classic Poem

I was in the broad, well-protected city that enemy kings cannot even
approach in their dreams but anyone who comes there in need
may enter! In a courtyard that was like a great field decorated
for a festival, fragrant with the blooming flowers of the gold-blossomed
pear tree from a forest inhabited by cowherds of upright mind and others
with great valor swelling up in their hearts, I drummed
on my sharp-toned tatari drum hard enough to shatter it,
so that the buildings resounded around me like mountain ranges
and I sang! There was no need for me to remain there many days
but on that very day I arrived, at the onset of the night,
he said, because I had come to him, “The musician with little hair
on his head who is standing at the high gate is in a sorry state!”
He asked me to approach him and from my waist he removed the garment
that was like moss in stagnant water and he replaced it with a new one
that was like a splendid flower and he gave me the toddy that brings joy
and he fed me rice with pieces of meat like amrta in a vessel of white
silver! And then to soothe the anguish of my large family burned dark
under the sun, so weak they could barely move, as they waited for me
in the public field before the city, he gave me a whole heap
of fine paddy the color of the venkai flower filled with nectar,
grown with the help of plowing oxen, and he said, “Accept this!
Take it from me!”—that man from a land with the best water, where
the springs people visit are adorned with mountain flowers! If you
should see him, he will take you into his home and there
as you sing the praises of his handsome feet. . . . . . . . . .
Those who say, “The clouds ignore our suffering!” do not know the king
who commands the best of elephants
and who drives away murderous hunger or else they have not seen him!