The only fame, or poetry, or power, that is of any value is that which, like the Ganga, brings benefit to all. Fair is Rama’s glory, but my verses are clumsy; such disparity fills me with anxious doubt.

But by your grace all will turn out well; for even canvas is beautiful if embroidered with silk.

If poetry be simple and its theme spotless fame, it is esteemed by the wise, and when enemies hear it, they forget their inveterate enmity and praise it.

But such verses cannot be composed without a refined intellect, and of intellectual power I have but slight; so again and again I make my supplication; be gracious to me that I may sing of Hari’s glory!

You poets and learned men, graceful swans sporting in the Holy Lake of the Acts of Raghubara, hearing my childlike prayer and regarding my earnest zeal be gracious!

I reverence the lotus feet of the great sage, Valmiki, who composed the Ramayana, which, though it tells of the demon Khara, is soft and charming, and faultless though it tells of the demon Dushana. (Khara, or Rough, and Dushana, or Fault, were both cousins of the demon king Ravana.)

I reverence the four Vedas, boats to bear the soul across the ocean of birth and death, which never weary for a moment while singing of Raghunatha’s unsullied glory.