071
Whence hath this commotion swirled In our old, slow moving world, That each girdled infidel Like a reed of grief doth tell?
In the hut of the fakir, In the palace of the ameer There is pain and there is ruth Huge to bow the back of youth.
Where is cure? For the disease With the cure doth yet increase; Science is all wizardry, Mean deceit, and trickery.
Adam’s ship rides not the main Save the torrent strive and strain; Every heart a thousand wise Doth the helmsman agonize.
Of life’s story do not seek Any tale for me to speak; All its pain I sufferd long, And departed with a song.
I have let my breath to ride; With the breeze of morning tide; I have wandered in this mead Yet no rose hath known my tread.
Far from cottage and from street, Yet in both abroad, and fleet, With the vision of the moon I have gazed this world upon!
072
Tulip in the mountains blowing, Lamp in mead and garden glowing, Gaze on me, for I will give Guidance on the way to live.
We are not the pigment charming, Nor the scattered scent disarming, We are that which moves confined In the heart, and in the mind.
Drunkenness is wine engendered, Springeth not of goblet tendered, Though it needs the goblet, too, To consume the wine, ’tis true.
Let thy breast be flame conceiving, For within this night of living Self may never come to sight Save discovered by this light.
Wave of flame, O bare thy bosom To the morning breeze; O blossom, Do not seek the dew, to quell Thy heart’s fiery crucible!
073
I am a slave set free, And Love still leadeth me; Love is my leader still, Mind bows to do my will.
The tumult flareth up Out of my circling cup; This is my evening star, My full moon, flaming far.
The spirit slept at rest, Desire stirred not the breast, Then struck a drunken air Caught in my circling snare.
O world of scent and hue, How long shall we so do? Death thy survival proves My living all is Love’s.
The One my thought reveals, The One my thought conceals; Here is His dwelling place— Behold my lofty grace!
074
Silent rosebud in her heart Had a secret, veiled apart, Suffered countless aches and woes Buffeted by thyme and rose.
So she sought, to keep her word, Breeze of spring and meadow bird, Putting faith in these (yet both Soared on wing) to guard her troth
075
I bow down before myself—there is no temple or Ka’bah left! This one is missing in Arabia, that one in other lands.
The petals of rose and tulip have lost their colour and moisture; The laments of birds have lost their melody.
In the workshop that is the world I see no new designs: Pre‐existence has, perhaps, run out of blueprints.
The heavenly bodies no longer want to revolve: Day and night are, perhaps, unable to move.
They have put up their feet before reaching their destination: The earthlings have, perhaps, no breath left in their chests.
Either the Register of Possibles has no blank pages left Or the Pen of Fate has grown too tired to write.