Classic Poem

When they saw your elephants moving, battling
and blunting their tusk tips in quenching
the furious bravery of frontline enemies,
they set new gates and crossbars in their walls.
When they saw your thoroughbred horses, laboring to advance
on stained hooves that tore at the bodies trampled
on the field, they blocked up the paths in their forests
with forked stakes. When they saw your spears, never
at rest in their scabbards of hide but flying through
the chests of men, they strengthened the handles
on the shafts of their shields. When they saw the Martial
Courage of your raging soldiers covered with sword wounds,
they thrust into quivers arrows still bloody from recent hits.
You who do not even protect yourself with the smoke
of mustard seed, you are like Death who will always move swiftly
from behind and will strike in an instant to carry away the life!
Those who do not praise you, will they not be plunged into grief
when their far-flung territories flowing with abundant water
and the paddy dipping and trembling as far
as the farthest ridges of the fields are turned to wasteland?