Classic Poem

Still I have not died, and still am not alone,
while with my beggarwoman friend
I take my pleasure from the grandeur of the plain
and from its gloom, its hunger and its hurricanes.

In splendid poverty, luxurious beggardom
I live alone - both peaceful and resigned -
blessed are those days and nights
and blameless is the sweetly sounding work.

Unhappy the man who like his shadow
quivers at a bark, is scythed down by the wind,
and poor the man who, half alive himself,
from a shadow begs for charity.