Choose the very summit when you build your nest.
You'll find the morning star shines brighter at the crest.
The rock of reason lies among the clean-cut mountains.
It's there and only there poems come to rest.

The nightingale falls silent when there's none to hear.
It cannot sing the praise of steppelands stark and sear.
If in. your heart you love the parched and barren desert,
Don't dare to scale the heights, to summits don't draw near.

The snow-storm sweeps away the nests you build too low,
Or butts they may become for boys with sling and bow.
But if you do raise fledglings, they may yet fall victim
To cats with savage claws and emerald eyes aglow.

From nests built in the mountains let your poems fly
To peaks of aspiration reaching to the sky,
Attaining lofty thoughts. Then you will hear proclaimed,
«His verse reflects Man's soul. His words shall never die!»

Seek out the mountain eagle. Learn to soar in flight.
Emulate the Sun, the source of heat and light.
In days of grief shed tears like showers in the springtime,
So, washed by cleansing tears, the world may be more bright.

Fly off, but don't forget ancestral words and ways.
Discover radiant stars, at other planets gaze,
Yet flames, that long ago from sparks your fathers kindled,
In flight should be your beacon, sacred, deathless blaze.

Oh, choose the human heart in which to weave your nest,
For there live love and honour at their very best.
The heart's the true abode of poems and the singer.
High over all the world Man's heart's a radiant crest.

1967