Psalms of the Brethren CCXLI: Silavat

For moral culture well applied doth bring
Near to our reach success of every kind.

Let the wise man protect his morals well,
Who doth to threefold happiness aspire:
A good name and the gain of this world’s goods
And, when this life is o’er, the joys of heaven.

The moral man, restrained, wins many friends;
Th’ immoral, working mischief, loseth friends.

Dispraise and ill-fame wins th’ immoral man;
Aye wins the good man fame, approval, praise.

Nothing there is of spiritual worth
But hath the moral habit as its base,
Its matrix and its vanguard and its source;
Make ye therefore your morals wholly pure.

Morals do give the tether and the term,
Light and delight affording to the heart;
The strand whence all th’ enlightened put to sea;
Make ye therefore your morals wholly pure.

No force is there like unto moral force;
Weapon supreme the moral habit is;
Chief decoration is the moral life;
Wondrous invulnerable coat of mail.

A mighty causeway is morality;
A peerless fragrance, sov’reign frankincense,
Wherewith we safely travel far and wide.

Good morals are the best viaticum,
Sov’reign munitions [for life’s pilgrimage],
Good morals are a peerless talisman,
Wherewith we safely travel far and wide.

The evil-minded man wins blame on earth,
And in the after-life a woeful doom;
A fool no matter where hath sorry cheer,
Not firmly planted on morality.

The man of virtuous mind wins fame on earth,
And in the after-life the radiant realms.
No matter where, the brave are of good cheer,
Their hearts well stablished in morality.

Chief here below is morals, but the man
Of wisdom is supreme; ’mong gods and men
He doth prevail who is both good and wise.