On the First Day of Creation Heaven Rebukes Earth

Life out of the delight of absence and presence fashioned forth this world of near and far;

so snapped asunder the thread of the moment and mixed the hues of Time’s house of amazement.

On all sides, out of the joyous yearning for hábitude arose the cry: ‘I am one thing, you are another.’

The moon and the stars learned the way to walk, a hundred lamps were kindled in the firmament.

In the azure heavens the sun pitched its gold cloth tent with its silver ropes,

raised its head over the rim of the first dawn and drew to its breast the new born world.

Man’s realm was a heap of earth, no more, an empty wilderness, without a caravan;

not a river wrestled in any mountain, not a cloud sprinkled on any desert,

no chanting of birds among the branches, no leaping of deer amidst the meadow.

Sea and land lacked the spirit’s manifestations, a curling vapour was the mantle of earth’s body;

the grasses, never having known the breeze of March, still slumbered within the depths of earth.

The azure sky then chided the earth, saying: ‘I never saw anyone pass so miserable a life!

In all my breadth what creature is so blind as you? What light is yours, save that drawn from my lamp?

Be earth high as Alvand, yet it is only earth, it is not bright and eternal as the skies.

Either live with the apparatus of a heart charmer, or die of the shame and misery of worthlessness!’

Earth felt put to shame by heaven’s reproach, desperate, heavy of heart, utterly annihilated,

fluttered before God in the agony of unlight. Suddenly a voice echoed from beyond the skies:

‘O trusty one, as yet unaware of the trust, be not sorrowful; look within thy own heart.

The days are bright of the tumult of life, not through the light thou seest spread in all quarters.

Dawn’s light comes from the spotted sun, the soul’s light is unsullied by the dust of time;

the soul’s light is upon a pathless journey, roves farther than the rays of sun, and moon.

Thou hast washed from the soul’s tablet the image of hope, yet the soul’s light manifests out of thy dust!

Man’s reason is making assault on the world, but his love makes assault on the Infinite;

his thought knows the way without any guide, his sight is more wakeful than Gabriel.

Earthy, yet in flight he is like an angel; heaven is but an ancient inn upon his way;

he pricks into the very depths of the heavns like the point of a needle into silk;

he washes the stains from the skirt of Being, and without his glance, the world is blank and blind.

Though few his magnificats, and much blood he sheds, yet he is as a spur in the flanks of doom.

His sight becomes keen through observing phenomena so that he sees the Essence within the attributes.

Whoever falls in love with the beauty of Essence, he is the master of all existing things.’