1. When lightning flashed from my scabbard,
From my frown poured heavy rainfalls.

2. This grey hair smiled when it descended,
The smile of a heart's beloved hypocrite.

3. I hated the stars of night for their color,
And who dragged them like gardens at dawn.

4. Yet he claims, not falsely, to be unlike
A youth whose claim of truth was not honest.

5. I reckon that honesty made him
Of many enemies, few friends sincere.

6. Hold fast to the tryst of grey hair and its pact,
And do not trust in the covenants of youth.

7. O fate, you have greyed my heart and my vision,
The greying of my temples is slightest to me.

8. Do you think me weakened, o fate,
When I crossed the fires of afflictions blazing?

9. Deluded like a raven whose nape feathers
Were lodged in the chest of a smiling moon.

10. Generous in loving hearts and steadfast,
Revealing by his noble manners his Maker.

11. Radiant, his neighing stirs the listeners,
Hinting that honor is to plunge into perils.

12. In my right hand is my past as a young man,
When clutched, its flash is the glare of lightning.

13. He has the laughter of one glad, the tear of a bereft,
The pride of the beloved, the humiliation of the lover.

14. He gratifies an ancient grudge yet is gentle,
And hides in chains the fires of thunderbolts.

15. His sire was the finest Indian steel,
Among the Indian swords the most skillfully wrought.

16. From the split of horse forelocks is a witness
By which the most eloquent silence speaks.

17. If he appeared rising from the scabbard's east,
His west is between the blades and the sheaths.