The Threadbare Cloak

You, to whose service I have given everything I have, both what is hidden in me and what is plain to see. In my whole life the wheel of heaven has never dared a single move against your will. It seems my true condition is unknown to my master's mind. I hope you will lend a generous ear and truly listen to your servant. A long time has passed, as long as this turban, and you still have not given me even one cloak. Your generosity has honored everyone with fine robes, the ignorant and the learned alike. How strange, can you really bear to see a young man like me in clothes like these? For every week this is my chore: to freshen up and patch this worn old thing. A good sum of silver piles up on me, spent on refreshing it and on mending. So much do I wash and beat again my own cloak and my turban. It would have fallen to shreds under the pounding of the wash if my clothing were not made of solid granite. And if this deprivation is a fate reserved for me alone, then give me the silver to keep washing and beating it, so I can finally get these off my back.