The Story of Adam

What a story I have to tell, to anyone who will listen, Of how I travelled in foreign lands!

I forgot the story of the First Covenant. In the garden of heaven, When 1 drank the fiery cup of awareness I felt uneasy.

I have always searched for the truth about the world, Showing the celestial heights of my thought.

Such was my fickle temperament That in no place under the sky could I settle for good

At times I cleared the Kaʹba of stone idols, But at times put statues in the same sanctuary;

At times, to savour talk, 1 went to Mount Sinai And hid the eternal light in the folds of my sleeve;

By my own people I was hung on the cross; I travelled to the skies, leaving earth behind.

For years I hid in the Cave of Hira, I served the world its last cup of wine;

Arriving in India, I sang the Divine Song; I took a fancy to the land of Greece;

When India did not heed my call, I went to live in China and Japan;

I saw the world composed of atoms, Contrary to what the men of faith taught.

By stirring up the conflict between reason and faith, I soaked in blood hundreds of lands.

When I failed to probe the reality of the stars, I spent nights on end wrapped in thought.

The sword of the Church could not frighten me; I taught the proposition of the revolving earth.

I donned the lens of far‐seeing reason, and told the world the secret of gravity.

I captured rays and the restless lightning, Making this earth the envy of paradise.

But although my reason held the world captive to my ring, Yet I remained ignorant of the secret of existence.

When at last my eyes, worshippers of appearance, were opened, I found it already lodged in the mansion of my heart