III. Showing that the Self is strengthened by Love

III. Showing that the Self is strengthened by Love.

The luminous point whose name is the Self
Is the life-spark beneath our dust.
By Love it is made more lasting,
More living, more burning, more glowing.
From Love proceeds the radiance of its being
And the development of its unknown possibilities.
Its nature gathers fire from Love,
Love instructs it to illumine the world.
Love fears neither sword nor dagger,
Love is not born of water and air and earth.
Love makes peace and war in the world,
The Fountain of Life is Love’s flashing sword.
The hardest rocks are shivered by Love’s glance:
Love of God at last becomes wholly God.
Learn thou to love, and seek to be loved:
Seek an eye like Noah’s, a heart like Job’s!
Transmute thy handful of earth into gold,
Kiss the threshold of a Perfect Man!
Like Rúmí, light thy candle
And burn Rúm in the fire of Tabríz!
There is a beloved hidden within thine heart:
I will show him to thee, if thou hast eyes to see.
His lovers are fairer than the fair,
Sweeter and comelier and more beloved.
By love of him the heart is made strong
And earth rubs shoulders with the Pleiades.
The soil of Najd was quickened by his grace
And fell into a rapture and rose to the skies.
In the Moslem’s heart is the home of Mohammed,
All our glory is from the name of Mohammed.
Sinai is but an eddy of the dust of his house,
The sanctuary of the Ka’ba is his dwelling-place.
Eternity is less than a moment of his time,
Eternity receives increase from his essence.
He slept on a mat of rushes,
But the crown of Chosroes was under his people’s feet.
He chose the nightly solitude of Mount Hirá,
And he founded a state and laws and government.
He passed many a night with sleepless eyes
In order that the Moslems might sleep on the throne of
Persia.
In the hour of battle, iron was melted by his sword;
In the hour of prayer, tears fell like rain from his eye.
When he was called to aid, his sword answered “Amen”
And extirpated the race of kings.
He instituted new laws in the world,
He brought the empires of antiquity to an end.
With the key of religion he opened the door of this world:
The womb of the world never bore his like.
In his sight high and low were one,
He sat with his slave at one table.
The daughter of the chieftain of Tai was taken prisoner in
battle
And brought into that exalted presence;
Her feet in chains, unveiled,
And her neck bowed with shame.
When the Prophet saw that the poor girl had no veil,
He covered her face with his own veil.
We are more naked than that lady of Tai,
We are unveiled before the nations of the world.
In him is our trust on the Day of Judgement,
And in this world too he is our protector.
Both his favour and his wrath are entirely a mercy:
That is a mercy to his friends and this to his foes.
He opened the gates of mercy to his enemies,
He gave to Mecca the message, “No blame shall be laid upon
you.”
We who know not the bonds of country
Resemble sight, which is one though it be the light of two
eyes.
We belong to the Hijáz and China and Persia,
Yet we are the dew of one smiling dawn.
We are all under the spell of the eye of the cupbearer from
Mecca,
We are united as wine and cup.
He burnt clean away distinctions of lineage,
His fire consumed this trash and rubble.
We are like a rose with many petals but with one perfume:
He is the soul of this society, and he is one.
We were the secret concealed in his heart:
He spake out fearlessly, and we were revealed.
The song of love for him fills my silent reed,
A hundred notes throb in my bosom.
How shall I tell what devotion he inspires?
A block of dry wood wept at parting from him.
The Moslem’s being is where he manifests his glory:
Many a Sinai springs from the dust on his path.
My image was created by his mirror,
My dawn rises from the sun of his breast.
My repose is a perpetual fever,
My evening hotter than the morning of Judgement Day:
He is the April cloud and I his garden,
My vine is bedewed with his rain.
I sowed mine eye in the field of Love
And reaped a harvest of delight.
“The soil of Medina is sweeter than both worlds:
Oh, happy the town where dwells the Beloved!”
I am lost in admiration of the style of Mullá Jámí:
His verse and prose are a remedy for my immaturity.
He has written poetry overflowing with beautiful ideas
And has threaded pearls in praise of the Master--
“Mohammed is the preface to the book of the universe:
All the world are slaves and he is the Master.”
From the wine of Love spring many qualities:
Amongst the attributes of Love is blind devotion.
The saint of Bistám, who in devotion was unique,
Abstained from eating a water-melon.
Be a lover constant in devotion to thy beloved,
That thou mayst cast thy noose and capture God.
Sojourn for a while on the Hirá of the heart,
Abandon self and flee to God.
Strengthened by God, return to thy self
And break the heads of the Lát and Uzzá of sensuality.
By the might of Love evoke an army,
Reveal thyself on the Fárán of Love,
That the Lord of the Ka’ba may show thee favour
And interpret to thee the text, “Lo, I will appoint a
vicegerent on the earth.”