"To this parched forest, poor in food, their way the travellers made,
And spied a mighty banyan tree with cool and pleasant shade.

"There underneath that shady tree those merchants all did sit,
And reasoned thus, with folly clothed and poverty of wit:

"Full moist the tree is, and it seems as water there did flow:
One of the branches let us cut which to the eastwards grow."

"The branch was cut; then pure and clear the trickling waters flow:
The merchants washed, the merchants drank till they had drunk enow.

"Again in poverty of wit, with folly clothed, they say,
"One of the branches on the south come let us cut away."

[352] "This branch being cut, both rice and meat out in a stream it brings,
Thick porridge, ginger, lentil soup and many other things.

"The merchants ate, the merchants drank, they took their fill of it,
Then said again, with folly clothed, in poverty of wit:

"Come, fellow-merchants, let us cut a western branch away."
Out came a bevy of fair girls all pranked in brave array.

"And O the robes of many hues, jewels and rings in plenty!
Each merchant had a pretty maid, each of the five and twenty.

"These all together stood around beneath the leafy shade:
These and the merchants in the midst, much merriment they made.

"Again in poverty of wit, with folly clothed, they say,
"One of the branches on the north come let us cut away."

"But when the northern branch was cut, out came a stream of gold,
Silver in handfuls, precious rugs, and jewels manifold;

"And robes of fine Benares cloth, and blankets thick and thin.
The merchants then to roll them up in bundles did begin.

"Again they said in witlessness and folly, as before:
"Come let us cut it by the root, and then we may get more."

"O then uprose their chief, and said, with a respectful bow,
"What mischief does the banyan do, good sirs? God bless you now!

"The eastern branch gave water-streams, the southern gave us food,
The western gave us pretty maids, the northern all things good:
What mischief does the banyan do, good sirs? God bless you now!

"The tree that gives you pleasant shade, to sit or lie at need,
You should not tear its branches down, a cruel wanton deed."

"But they were many, he was one whose voice forbade them do't:
They struck the whetted axes in to fell it by the root."