There among the Saints, the purest, of all Zones, is he now found:
Hail! All hail his Memory holy: Maulānā Jelál-ed-Dín!
Notes.
A.
SIR WILLIAM JONES ON THE MYSTICAL POETRY OF THE PERSIANS.
1. Epitome of the Mystical System.—The Persian (and Hindu) mystical Poets 'concur in believing that the souls of men differ infinitely in degree, but not at all in kind, from the divine Spirit, of which they are particles, and in which they will ultimately be absorbed; that the spirit of God pervades the universe, always immediately present to his work, and consequently always in substance; that he alone is perfect benevolence, perfect truth, perfect beauty; that the love of him alone is real and genuine love, while that of all other objects is absurd and illusory; that the beauties of Nature are faint resemblances, like images in a mirror, of the divine charms; that, from eternity without beginning to eternity without end, the supreme benevolence is occupied in bestowing happiness or the means of attaining it; that men can only attain it by performing their part of the primal covenant between them and the Creator; that nothing has a pure absolute existence, but mind or spirit; that material substances, as the ignorant call them, are no more than gay pictures presented continually to our minds by the Sempiternal Artist; that we must beware of attachment to such phantoms, and attach ourselves exclusively to God, who truly exists in us, as we exist solely in him; that we retain, even in this forlorn state of separation from our beloved, the idea of heavenly beauty, and the remembrance of our primeval vows; that sweet music, gentle breezes, fragrant flowers, perpetually renew the primary idea, refresh our fading memory, and melt us with tender affections; that we must cherish those affections, and by abstracting our souls from vanity, that is, from all but God, approximate to his essence, in our final union with which will consist our supreme beatitude. From these principles flow a thousand metaphors and poetical figures, which abound in the sacred poems of the Persians and Hindus.'
2. The poetical Imagery.—'Many zealous admirers of Hafiz insist, that by Wine he invariably means devotion; and they have gone so far as to compose a Dictionary of Words in the Language, as they call it, of the Súfis. In that vocabulary sleep is explained by meditation on the divine perfections, and perfume by hope of the divine favour; gales are illapses of grace; kisses and embraces, the raptures of piety; idolaters, infidels, and libertines are men of the purest religion, and their idol is the Creator Himself; the tavern is a retired Oratory, and its keeper a sage instructor; beauty denotes the perfection of the Supreme Being; tresses are the expansion of his glory; lips, the hidden mysteries of his essence; down on the cheek, the world of spirits, who encircle his throne; and a black mole, the point of indivisible unity; lastly, wantonness, mirth, and ebriety, mean religious ardour and abstraction from all terrestrial thoughts.'—Sir William Jones' Works, vol. iv. pp. 219, 227.
B.
HEGEL ON THE CHARACTER OF THE PERSIAN LYRICAL POETRY.
Continuing the exposition quoted on p. xxi., Hegel goes on to say:—