1. The graceful palms bend mournfully
Or does the upper pit, its fate to cave in?

2. Both bear the marks of homes long lost
Where dwellings have faded, their lines blurred

3. And seen there, many a weeping eye and sorrow -
Swift their passage, should they be recalled

4. See the cotton plant, it clothes the poor
Yet rich, when its needy come to speak

5. It sways towards the mosque, as if
Crippled, limping heavily in its walk

6. Like a diver’s pearl flung amid thrashing waves
His soul fears its conscience, as down he dives

7. Left with the pearl, mute though it be
It warns the diver, like a harbinger

8. “I’ll meet my death,” he says “or gain riches
For myself, as life’s full term nears its end”

9. Seeing the pearl, the tempting soul
Of the poor diver cannot sleep

10. He plunges amid thrashing waves
Is it death or a herald of tidings he nears?

11. The claws of death reached out as it approached
Bared fangs drawing rapidly closer

12. He jerked the rope, seaweed swirling ‘bove
While below, the dark waters churned

13. Scarce had he come before the soul’s hues flowed out
Scattered carelessly, lost ‘mid the swelling tides

14. When they would torment a voyager
His soul refuses to relent or stray from course

15. When his mother saw him weak and distraught
Her hope of riches faded, its light dimmed

16. And the merchants continue to cheat her
While nothing remains but the meager pearls