The Free Man
The free man is strong through repetition of Fear not; in the battlefield we are hesitant while he is daring;
the free man is clairvoyant through There is no deity, he does not fall into the snare of kings and lords;
like the camel, the free man carries burdens: he carries burdens but lives on thorny bushes.
He sets his foot so firmly on the ground that the pulse of the pathway begins to throb with his ardour;
his soul becomes more everlasting through death, his call of takbir is beyond words and sounds.
The dervish gets tribute from kings, who regards the stones of the pathway as mere glass.
The warmth of your nature is due to his red wine; your stream is watered by his river.
Kings in their silken robes are pallid from fear of that naked fakir.
The essence of faith for us is report, for him it is vision he is within the house while we are outside the door
we are friends of the Church, we sell mosques, he quaffs cups from the hands of Mustafa himself;
He is not indebted to the wine seller, nor has he the cup in his hand; we have empty cups, while he is intoxicated since eternity.
The face of the rose is red through his grace, his smoke is brighter than our fire.
He has in his bosom a clarion call to nations, their destiny is inscribed on his forehead.
We turn in worship sometimes to the Church and sometimes to the temple, he does not seek his sustenance from others’ hands;
we are all slaves of the Franks, he is His slave, he cannot be contained in this world of colour and smell.
Our days and nights are spent in anxiety for livelihood; but what is our end?—pains of death.
He alone has stability amidst this world of instability; death for him is one of the stations of life.
The people of the heart feel frustrated in our company, but the grace of his company puts a heart even into dust.
Our life is subject to doubts and misgivings, he is all activity and little talk;
we are beggars roaming the streets and destitute, his faqr is equipped with the sword of There is no deity;
We are mere straw caught in a whirlwind, his stroke on the mountain brings out springs of water.
Get acquainted with him and avoid us, destroy your present house and acquire a new one.
Complain not of the revolving sky revive yourself through associating with that living person.
Association is better than knowledge of books, companionship of free men is creative of men.
A free man is a deep and shoreless sea, get your water from an ocean and not from a canal.
His breast is in ferment like a boiling kettle, for him a solid mountain is like a heap of sand.
In peace, he is the ornament of the assembly, like spring wind to the garden;
on the day of battle, he, the knower of his destiny, digs his own grave with his own sword;
fly from us like an arrow, and catch hold of his skirt with a frenzy.
The seed of the heart does not develop out of water and clay, without the look of the people of the heart.
In this world you do not count more than a piece of straw unless you attach yourself to the skirt of somebody.