Classic Poem

From the time it began my life has been filled with suffering though I
have never been able to accept it, and now the sharpness of my mind
has gone and so has that of my young wife who has been with me a long time,
and my pain is great as I sing my songs for the clans one after another
in due order of their rank. Hero! You who wear a garland of flowers!
Since in other lands no one exists who is aware of the responsibility
to turn our cooking pot right side up even though it has forgotten its will
to cook, and with our minds wondering who will be properly generous to us,
the goad of desire impelling me, I think of your noble reputation, you
for whom it seems the whole wealth of the world has been gathered together!
Lifting away the fierce suffering from my large family burned dark by sun,
who have forgotten how it feels to have their hands moist with food,
you should tear juicy, fat meat into pieces and offer them those chunks
white with fat like the cotton of summer carded and packed into dense
bundles! And you should strip me of my old ragged garment that is split
like the tongue of a serpent that has laid its eggs at its time to breed,
and you should clothe me then in a broad garment with folds like the petals
of newly blossoming pakanrai flowers that have sprung open their buds!
And you should give away wealth without holding anything back,
O greatness! O lord of a good land where the Kaviri spreads its water
without fail even in the season of the heat when everything withers
like the yoni of a dancing girl when the dance is done! We will drum
clear notes on the dark kinai drum that is like the full moon and we'll
chant, “Long life to Valavan, whose sword never fails!”
and again and again we will sing of your great and strenuous achievements!