But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be
When the years have died away'!
In the year of Jeláleddín's death Edward I. ascended the throne of England, with the first faltering grasp of a mightier Empire; the boy Dante was catching the gleam of strange Visions in the shining eyes of the sweet-faced gentle maiden Beatrice; the mystic thrill that had run through the Middle Age was pulsing in the youth of Meister Eckhart, and preparing for Suso and Ruysbroek and Thomas à Kempis, through the mellifluous Rhythm of St. Bernard which had been sung for a hundred years; the Doctor Angelicus had all but summed up the system of Christian Theology, the well-worn pen just trembling to its fall from his wearied grasp; and the spirit of Martin Luther, whom of all religious Reformers Jeláleddín most resembles, was already beginning to breathe in William Occam and the free young thinkers of the time. Yes; Jeláleddín has both a wider relationship and a more modern significance than even Hegel has thought of.
And now we have surely cited Authorities enough to enable us to form at least a preliminary judgment, fair, reasonably informed, and impartial, concerning Jeláleddín's distinctive position and work as a Poet. We have seen him thrice crowned—in the Realms of Poetry. Philosophy, and Religion—by authoritative representatives, qualified kingmakers; and hardly any one who now knows truly of him, will dispute his right to be ranked as one of 'the great of old! The dead but sceptred sovrans who still rule our spirits from their urns.' His royal Title was proclaimed long ago in the musical name most aptly bestowed upon him when he lived and sang, and by those who knew him best: Jeláleddín, which we have already rendered literally as 'The Splendour of the Faith,' but which we prefer now to reproduce in its proper English equivalent as 'The Glory of Religion.' This designation at once strikingly expresses the Secret of his Power, the Consecration of his Genius, and the essence and end of his Humanity. To him Religion was all in all; it was the very Life-breath of his Soul; the Home and Joy of his Heart; the be-all and end-all of his Will. Of but very few others of the Sons of Men can this be said; of only One can it be said in a higher degree than of Jeláleddín, as he himself knew and confessed. He too 'sought for the healing Hand of Jesus,' and it purged his inner sight and enabled him to see all the world again, lying bright and beautiful, in the Light and Love of God. And moved by that all-compelling Law whose 'seat is the Bosom of God' and whose 'voice is the Harmony of the world,' he burst spontaneously into song, and the keynote of all his singing—exultant, jubilant, triumphant—was ever the living, loving God, 'Him first, Him last, Him without end.' Religion was the golden Thread on which, all his silvery poetic Pearls were strung, and he flung them around him in his own generous, selfless joy, with the most lavish hand. They seem to have cost him no effort of search or toil. Much more than Spinoza or Novalis was he a 'God-intoxicated man'; the prophetic fire burned in his soul, without consuming it and it must out in 'thoughts that breathe and words that burn.' And this is still our precious inheritance from him to-day, which we will do well to appreciate and cherish anew in this cold, heartless, irreligious, prosaic time. Let his ringing voice then be reverently heard even through these few, faint, far-off re-echoings of his own soul-stirring elevating strains; for the burden of all he sings, in endless variation of note and tune, his one theme as he himself caught it direct from the melody of Nature and of Man, is the Glory of Religion!
This very general Introduction to the subject-matter of Jelál's Lyrics must here suffice, as our immediate object is merely to present some specimens of them in a form at once popular and generally intelligible. But the detail of the subject in its historical, philosophical and theological bearings, which would only be confusing here, is reserved for some subsequent discussion. Sir William Jones gave a first popular Epitome of the Mystical System of the Persian Poets, which in its own way has never been surpassed (see Note A), although the subject has been much more profoundly studied and elucidated since his time. A competent discussion of the system of 'the greatest Sufic poet of Persia' (Ethé), would be a valuable contribution to our contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Mr. Nicholson has concisely sketched the parallelism between the doctrines of Jeláleddín and Plotinus, but we must go further and even deeper than Plotinus in order to reach the root of the whole matter. Professor Browne is very helpful, and gives the best Literature, as also does Hughes in his most interesting illustrated Articles; Kremer is invaluable, as also are Professor Palmer on the one hand, and the recent translators and expounders of the early Iranian and Hindu Religion and Philosophy on the other; Whinfield gives an able, lucid Sketch.
III.
Looking now at the poetical form of Jelál's Lyrics, it goes without saying that it is distinctively Persian, and always eminently so in its kind. The Persian Poets were truly 'makers'; they not only created most of the nature-imagery still current in all modern poetry, but they constructed new forms of rhythm and rhyme, in which they finely echoed the sweetest melodies of nature and gave a richer and more expressive music to human speech. Their fluent and flexible language, with its natural wealth of resonant cadences and rhymes, furnished them with a facile medium of expression, and the still richer Arabic readily lent its copious resources at need. And the Persians were always rhyming, in public and private, on great themes or small; a poetic people, ever ready to recognise and honour sweet songsters; the readiest and wittiest of 'improvvisatori.' Even yet, as Richardson tells us; 'it is a common entertainment for the great and learned men in Persia, to assemble together, with the view to an exercise of genius, in the resolving of enigmas ... and to rival one another in the facility of composing and replying to extempore verses, in which, from practice and a natural liveliness of fancy, many of them arrive at an astonishing proficiency.' Hence, as Goethe says of himself, the Persian Poets 'sang as the birds sing;' and taking that master-singer of Nature, the Nightingale, as their model, they too trilled in strains of unrivalled sweetness, range and depth of tone, and consummate florid beauty. Even the most careless reader cannot fail to be impressed by the affluence of imagery in the Persian Lyrical Poetry, and no one has dwelt more suggestively than Hegel on the spiritual significance of its characteristic profusion of metaphors, images, similes, and comparisons.[16] But while so lavishly employing the decorative forms common to all lyrical poetry, the Persian Poets, with singular constructive originality, also created new lyrical forms of their own, and carried them to their highest perfection. Chief of these are the Gazel and the Divan, two terms which are only now being naturalised in our language, and becoming generally understood. Here, again, it may be more serviceable to quote one or two authorities, rather than to give a mere abstract definition; and as we have generally found the older authorities in these matters to be the best, we start with Richardson's summary of the definitions of D'Herbelot and Revizky.
'The Ghazel or Eastern Ode—says Richardson—is a species of poem, the subject of which is in general Love and Wine, interspersed with moral sentiments, and reflections on the virtues and vices of mankind. It ought never to consist of less than 5 beits or distichs, nor exceed 18, according to D'Herbelot; if the poem is less than five, it is then called rabat or quartain; if it is more than eighteen, it then assumes the name of kasside or elegy. Baron Revizky[17] says, that all poems of this kind which exceed 13 beits [couplets], rank with the kasside; and, according to Meninski, the ghazel ought never to have more than 11.—Every verse in the same ghazel must rhyme with the same letter; and when a poet has completed a series of such poems (the rhymes of the first class being in alif [a], the second in be , and so on through the whole alphabet), it is called a Divan, and he obtains the title of Hafez, or as the Arabians pronounce it, Hafedh.... The ghazel is more irregular than the Greek or Latin Ode, one verse having often no apparent connection either with the foregoing or subsequent couplets. Ghazels were often, says Baron Revizky, written or spoken extempore at banquets or public festivities, when the poet, after expressing his ideas in one distich, impatient of confinement, roved through the regions of fancy, as wine or a luxuriant imagination inspired.'[18]
This is excellent, and thoroughly intelligible. But let us take from Rückert's most learned work, the more authoritative concise statement of the 'Heft Kolzum': 'The Ghazel is a poem of several Beits, which have all one measure and one rhyme. According to some, there should not be more than 11 Beits, according to others 12; but some are found having as many as 19.'[19]