Sarama

Someone has stolen the sacred cows
and hidden them among the mountain caves.
They dwell on the far side of the river
that separates the world of gods and men
from the world of demons.

Prophets have told of the decline.
We either live in an age of poverty,
Or one of great abundance.
There is hardly a distinction
In the World as Will and Idea.

The Panis have stolen something of ours.
“These are the cows which you desire,
lovely lady, having flown beyond the ends of the skies,
who would give them up to you without a fight?”

It is hard to imagine a people
who have no language of their own.
Harder still to imagine the vanquished
Who have never known battle, only prayer.
Does modern life have a place for poets?
For Homer? For Goerthe?

“Your words are no armies.
Your evil bodies may be proof against our arrows.
But where you go we will follow,
Where you hide you will not be spared.”

There is little reflection. Oh Muse!
You are as fickle as the night,
As constant as the dawn!
What we admire we lavish only in its decline.
To do else-wise would impede your progress.
We criticize what we cannot hope to understand.