THE WATER OF ETERNAL LIFE
Every form you see has its archetype in the placeless world;
If the form perished, no matter, since its Original is everlasting.
Every fair shape you have seen, every deep saying you have heard,
Be not cast down that it perished; for that is not so.
Whereas the Spring-head is undying, its branch gives water continually;
Since neither can cease, why are you lamenting?
Conceive the Soul as a fountain, and these created things as rivers:
While the Fountain flows, the rivers run from it.
Put grief out of your head and keep quaffing this River-water;
Do not think of the Water failing, for this Water is without end.
EARTHLY LOVE AND THE LOVE DIVINE
'Twere better that the spirit which wears not true Love as a garment
Had not been: its being is but shame.
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Without the dealing of Love there is no entrance to the Beloved.
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'Tis Love and the Lover that live to all Eternity;
Set not thy heart on aught else; 'tis only borrowed,
How long wilt thou embrace a dead beloved?
Embrace the Soul which is embraced by nothing.
What was born of spring dies in autumn,
Love's rose-plot hath no aiding from the early spring.
"THE HOUSE OF LOVE"
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 my 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.
LOVE'S DESIRE
Show Thy face, for I desire the orchard and the rose-garden;
Ope Thy lips, for I desire sugar in plenty.
O sun, show forth Thy face from the veil of cloud,
For I desire that radiant glowing countenance.
THE FINDING OF THE BELOVED
I was on that day when the Names were not,
Nor any sign of existence endowed with name,
By me Names and Named were brought to view
On the day when there was not "I" and "We,"
For a sign, the tip of the Beloved's curl became a centre of revelation;
As yet the tip of that curl was not.
Cross and Christians, from end to end,
I surveyed; He was not on the Cross.
I went to the idol-temple, to the ancient pagoda;
No trace was visible there.
I went to the mountains of Herāt and Candahār;
I looked; He was not in that hill-and-dale.
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I gazed into my own heart;
There I saw Him; He was nowhere else.
GOD ONLY
"None but God has contemplated the beauty of God."
This eye and that lamp are two lights, each individual,
When they came together, no one distinguished them.
THE MOON-SOUL AND THE SEA
At morning-tide a moon appeared in the sky,
And descended from the sky and gazed on me.
Like a falcon which snatches a bird at the time of hunting,
That moon snatched me up and coursed over the sky.
When I looked at myself, I saw myself no more,
Because in that moon my body became by grace even as soul.
When I travelled in soul, I saw naught save the moon,
Till the secret of the Eternal Theophany was revealed.
The nine spheres of heaven were all merged in that moon,
The vessel of my being was completely hidden in the sea.
The sea broke into waves, and again Wisdom rose
And cast abroad a voice; so it happened and thus it befell.
Foamed the sea, and at every foam-fleck
Something took figure and something was bodied forth.
Every foam-fleck of body, which received a sign from that sea,
Melted straightway and turned to spirit in this Ocean.
LIFE IN DEATH
When my bier moveth on the day of Death,
Think not my heart is in this world.
Do not weep in the devil's snare: that is woe.
When thou seest my hearse, cry not "Parted, parted!"
Union and meeting are mine in that hour.
If thou commit me to the grave, say not "Farewell, farewell!"
For the grave is a curtain hiding the communion of Paradise,
After beholding descent, consider resurrection;
Why should setting be injurious to the sun and moon?
To thee it seems a setting, but 'tis a rising;
Tho' the vault seems a prison, 'tis the release of the soul.
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Shut thy mouth on this side and open it beyond,
For in placeless air will be thy triumphal song.
THE WHOLE AND THE PART
Beware! do not keep, in a circle of reprobates,
Thine eye shut like a bud, thy mouth open like the rose.
The world resembles a mirror: thy Love is the perfect image:
O people, who has ever seen a part greater than the whole?
THE DIVINE FRIEND
Look on me, for thou art my companion in the grave
On the night when thou shalt pass from shop and dwelling.
Thou shalt hear my hail in the hollow of the tomb: it shall become known to thee
That thou wast never concealed from mine eye.
I am as reason and intellect within thy bosom
At the time of joy and gladness, at the time of sorrow and distress.
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In the hour when the intellectual lamp is lighted,
What a pears goes up from the dead men in the tombs!