Death or Poverty?

Death or Poverty, which you prefer?

Mait:* On What do you meditate?

Char:** My friend --

    The happiness that follows close on sorrow,

    Shows like a lamp that breaks upon the night:

    But he that falls from affluence to poverty,

    May wear the human semblance, but exists

    A lifeless from alone.

Mait: Which think you preferable then, death or poverty?

Char: Had I the choice,

    Death, and not poverty, were my election:

    To die is transient suffering: to be poor --

    Interminable anguish.

**Char: = Charudatta (a Brahman of a wealthy and respectable family, reduced to poverty by his munificence.)

*Mait: = Maitreya (a Brahman, the friend and companion of Charudatta.)

(Excerpts from "Mrichchakati or The Toy Cart)

It is the excerpts of translation from the original Sanscrit by Horace Hayman Wilson, Esq. in 1826)