Classic Poem

He who in his old age longeth after youth,
Say to him, " What dost thou that thou mockest at thy shame? "
He whose years are many and joins youth and age together,
Better than his case is that of the wild rue.
Now so gorged at table that his power is gone of eating,
Yet insatiable he turns his eyes on the food that is before him.
In their designs, in their behaviour, in their deeds,
Suspicious are all men of one another.
Now my beard is white, why should I fear death?
Gone have all my friends, though their hair was black, before me.
They whose orders the whole earth lay under,
Come and look at them now beneath the earth!
Man is but shifting sand if thou look well at him,
Thus it ever changes, rolling round and round.
Fate's furnace many times have I with my own eyes witnessed,
I, Khush-hal, know well that it burns both green and dry.