To God

Happy the wayfarer who carries no provisions and listens less to friends’ advice.

Open thy breast to his soul burning sigh, for his one sigh kills a hundred year old grief.

(1)

They enraptured our hearts and departed, They congealed like a flame and disappeared.

Come, mix for a while with common people, for the elect took wine and disappeared.

There was discussion about my being and non‐being, through shame I hardly opened my mouth;

you recognize prostration of living persons, judge my mettle from my prostration!

My heart is entangled in the web of why and wherefore, its target is above the moon and Pleiades;

give him some desolate corner in your hell, for this kafir is much given to solitude!

What commotion has taken hold of this water and clay? One heart has put ‘ishq into a hundred difficulties.

Rest of one moment is forbidden to me, Mercy on me, for I am to deal with heart!

Who created the world out of his own self? Whose unveiled glory does its beauty represent?

You say to me, ‘Beware of Satan!’ But tell me: Who nurtured him?

(2)

My heart, free from all bonds, is restless to know: which is my fate—wrath or pleasurable encounter?

I can’t injure Iblis’s feelings even, my wayward sin is therefore a virtue.

“O mother ‘Amr, you deprived us of the cup, for it was now the turn of those on the right”

if this is the way of friendliness, throw then the cup and wine on Harem’s walls.

Self entangled people are in heart’s chains, they are all pain, not amenable to treatment;

why expect prostration from us? For kings don’t levy tribute on desolate land.

I go by a way that has no destination and the seeds that I scatter yield no fruit;

I am not afraid of griefs, but don’t give a grief that is not worthy of my heart.

Keep my wine away from petty minded, let my ripe wine be out of reach of raw hands;

better if a flame be kept away from reed field, bestow it on the elect, keep it from common folk!

You need not struggle to achieve, You suffer neither pain, nor grief, nor burning scar;

I fled from Spaceless Realm, because it is not the place for mid nightly bewailing.

Make me fill this world with commotion, And completely change the earth and the sky.

Raise a new Adam from our dust, And kill this slave of profit and loss.

This is a world which is made even darker by the sun, Its right is wrong all through.

I do not know for how long You will use Adam’s blood to give it colour and glow!

I’m Thy slave, I seek nothing but Thy wish, I tread only the path that Thou willed;

but if Thou ask’st this simpleton to call an ass an Arab horse, I can’t!

(3)

This heart in my breast, without ecstasy, this handful of earth, devoid both of light and flame,

take it away from me, for it’s unwelcome burden: this reward of prayers, said so absent mindedly!

What should I say about religion and nationalism? for one cannot say it plainly;

don’t be angry with me, for through Your indifference I have started setting up the same old temple.

A Muslim in bondage to Europe: his heart does not yield to Him so easily;

from the forehead that bows before other than God you cannot expect prostrations of Bu Dharr and Salman.

I crave not for this and the other world, it is sufficient that I know the secret of life;

bestow on me a prostration that, through its burning and joy, I bring the earth and heaven into ecstasy.

What do you expect from this ease loving person who moved with every movement of wind?

This morning I saw Javid in prostration, may my night’s face be adorned by his mornings.

(4)

wish for help from You for a people whose religious lawyers lack certitude and knowledge;

I have seen many unworthy events, would that I had not been!

How long you look so wrathfully at me? how long those idols of now and here?

how long the progeny of Abraham be faithful to Nimrod’s association in this idol temple?

Will the old song return? Will another breeze arrive from the Hijaz?

The time of this faqir has come – Will there be another who knows all secrets?

If that knower of secret comes, bestow on him heart melting voice;

the heart of a people is purified only by a prophet or a singing sage.

My asset: a heart sympathetic to pain, my lot: an unending and unremitting cry;

a tulip can better adorn my grave: it is silent and has a voice of blood.

(5)

The heart doesn’t know taking from others’ hands or nourishing grief within the bosom;

you breathed your spirit unto that clay that knoweth nothing save eating and dying!

Our heart flies from its anchor, got stuck into form and lost the soul;

that condemned one is better than we: he did see Thee while we haven’t.

Gabriel doesn’t know this outcry and tumult, for he has not tasted the agony of search;

ask this helpless creature of yours who knows the pleasure and pain of desire!

I set up this assembly at night, I diminished through self revolution like the moon;

there was talk of your carelessness, but I left the meeting.

Heaven had hardly seen such scenes when Gabriel feels pangs of heart;

what a beautiful temple has been set up there: the kafir craves idols, the Muslim worships.