Ode XV

This house wherein is continually the sound of the viol,
Ask of the master what house is this.
What means this idol-form, if this is the house of the Ka‘ba?
And what means this light of God, if this is a Magian temple?
In this house is a treasure which the universe is too small to hold;
This house and this master is all acting and pretence.
Lay no hand on the house, for this house is a talisman;
Speak not with the master, for he is drunken overnight.
The dust and rubbish of this house is all musk and perfume;
The roof and door of this house is all verse and melody.
In fine, whoever has found the way into this house
Is sultan of the world and Solomon of the time.
O master, bend down thy head once from this roof,
For in thy fair face is a token of fortune.
I swear by thy soul that save the sight of thy countenance,
All, tho’ ’twere the kingdom of the earth, is fantasy and fable.
The garden is bewildered to know which is the leaf, and which the blossom;
The birds are distracted to know which is the snare and which the bait.
This is the Lord of heaven, who resembles Venus and the moon,
This is the house of Love, which has no bound or end.
Like a mirror, the soul has received thy image in its heart;
The tip of thy curl has sunk into the heart like a comb.
Forasmuch as the women cut their hands in Joseph’s presence,
Come to me, O soul, for the Beloved is in the midst.
All the house are drunken — none has knowledge
Of each who enters that he is so-and-so or so-and-so.
Do not sit intoxicated at the door: come into the house quickly;
He is in the dark whose place is the threshold.
Those drunk with God, tho’ they be thousands, are yet one;
Those drunk with lust — tho’ it be a single one, he is a double.
Go into the wood of lions and reck not of the wound,
For thought and fear — all these are figments of women.
For there is no wound: all is mercy and love.
But thy imagination is like a bar behind the door.
Set fire to the wood, and keep silence, O heart;
Draw back thy tongue, for thy tongue is harmful.