The Dread Of Mendicancy (By St. Thiruvalluvar) Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

1061.It is ten million fold gain asking not alms from those
Eye-like excellent men who give happily without hiding.
1062.If the Creator decreed that men should live abegging
Let Him too roam like the beggar and perish.
1063.Nothing is stronger than the thought to drive away
The pain of penury by begging.
1064.The world will hardly suffice to hold the greatness
That refuses to beg even in poverty bereft of pleasure.
1065.Nothing is sweeter to eat than the cooked crystal clear
Water-like gruel got out of one’s labour.
1066.Nothing is more degrading to one’s tongue to say words
To beg water even for a cow.
1067.I’d beg all beggars not to beg of those who hide
If at all they beg.
1068.The fragile raft of begging will wreck
Dashing against the hard rock of hiding.
1069.To think of the evil of begging melts one’s heart.
But to think of the denial of alms by hiding breaks it.
1070.Hearing the words of refusal of alms, the beggar dies
But where to hide the life of one who denies alms flies?