C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Orphan

From the ‘Garden of Perfume’: Translation of H. Wilberforce Clarke

CAST protection over the head of the one father-dead;

Scatter his dust of affliction, and pluck out his thorn.

Knowst thou not how very dejected his state was?

May a rootless tree be ever green?

When thou seest an orphan, head lowered in front [from grief],

Give not a kiss to the face of thy own son.

If the orphan weeps, who buys for his consolation?

And if he becomes angry, who leads him back [to quietude]?

Beware that he weep not; for the great throne of God

Keeps trembling when the orphan weeps.

Pluck out with kindness the tear from his pure eye;

Scatter with compassion the dust of affliction from his face.

If his [father’s] protection departed from over his head,

Do thou cherish him with thy own protection.

I esteemed my head crown-worthy at that time

When I held my head in my father’s bosom.

If a fly had sat on my body,

The heart of some would have become distressed.

If now enemies should bear me away captive,

None of my friends is a helper.

For me [there] is acquaintance with the sorrows of orphans,

For in childhood my father departed in death, from my head.