Appendix II

Translations in Verse. My aim has been, without departing from the sense, to reproduce, as far as possible, the passion and melody of the Persian. The arrangement of the rhymes in (c) and (d) corresponds to that of the original: a closer imitation could not be attempted, owing to fundamental differences of metrical system.

(a) VII.

He comes, a moon whose like the sky ne’er saw, awake or dreaming,Crowned with eternal flame no flood can lay.Lo, from the flagon of thy love, O Lord, my soul is swimming,And ruined all my body’s house of clay!

When first the Giver of the grape my lonely heart befriended,Wine fired my bosom and my veins filled up,But when his image all mine eye possessed, a voice descended:‘Well done, O sovereign Wine and peerless Cup!’

Love’s mighty arm from roof to base each dark abode is hewingWhere chinks reluctant catch a golden ray.My heart, when Love’s sea of a sudden burst into its viewing,Leaped headlong in, with ‘Find me now who may!’

As, the sun moving, clouds behind him run,All hearts attend thee, O Tabrīz’s Sun!

(b) XII.

Poor copies out of heaven’s original,Pale earthly pictures mouldering to decay,What care altho’ your beauties break and fall,When that which gave them life endures for aye?

O never vex thine heart with idle woes:All high discourse enchanting the rapt ear,All gilded landscapes and brave glistering showsFade—perish, but it is not as we fear.

While far away the living fountains ply,Each petty brook goes brimful to the main.Since brook nor fountain can forever die,Thy fears how foolish, thy lament how vain!

What is this fountain, wouldst thou rightly know?The Soul whence issue all created things.Doubtless the rivers shall not cease to flow,Till silenced are the everlasting springs.

Farewell to sorrow, and with quiet mindDrink long and deep: let others fondly deemThe channel empty they perchance may find,Or fathom that unfathomable stream.

The moment thou to this low world wast given,A ladder stood whereby thou mightst aspire;And first thy steps, which upward still have striven,From mineral mounted to the plant: then higher

To animal existence: next, the Man,With knowledge, reason, faith. O wondrous goal!This body, which a crumb of dust began—How fairly fashioned the consummate whole!

Yet stay not here thy journey: thou shalt growAn angel bright and home far off in heaven.Plod on, plunge last in the great Sea, that soThy little drop make oceans seven times seven.

‘The Son of God!’ Nay, leave that word unsaid,Say, ‘God is One, the pure, the single Truth.’What tho’ thy frame be withered, old, and dead,If the soul save her fresh immortal youth?

Lo, for I to myself am unknown, now in God’s name what must I do?I adore not the Cross nor the Crescent, I am not a Giaour nor a Jew.

East nor West, land nor sea is my home, I have kin nor with angel nor gnome,I am wrought not of fire nor of foam, I am shaped not of dust nor of dew.
I was born not in China afar, not in Saqsīn and not in Bulghār;Not in India, where five rivers are, nor ‘Irāq nor Khorāsān I grew.
Not in this world nor that world I dwell, not in Paradise, neither in Hell;Not from Eden and Riẓwān I fell, not from Adam my lineage I drew.
In a place beyond uttermost Place, in a tract without shadow of trace,Soul and body transcending, I live in the soul of my Loved One anew!

(d) XXXVI. 1–6.

Up, O ye lovers, and away! ’Tis time to leave the world for aye.Hark, loud and clear from heaven the drum of parting calls—let none delay!

The cameleer hath risen amain, made ready all the camel-train,And quittance now desires to gain: why sleep ye, travellers, I pray?
Behind us and before there swells the din of parting and of bells;To shoreless Space each moment sails a disembodied spirit away.
From yonder starry lights and through those curtain-awnings darkly blueMysterious figures float in view, all strange and secret things display.
From this orb, wheeling round its pole, a wondrous slumber o’er thee stole:O weary life that weighest nought, O sleep that on my soul dost weigh!
O heart, toward thy heart’s love wend, and O friend, fly toward the Friend,Be wakeful, watchman, to the end: drowse seemingly no watchman may.

(e) XLIV. 1–7.

Why wilt thou dwell in mouldy cell, a captive, O my heart?Speed, speed the flight! a nursling bright of yonder world thou art.

He bids thee rest upon his breast, he flings the veil away:Thy home wherefore make evermore this mansion of decay?
O contemplate thy true estate, enlarge thyself, and roveFrom this dark world, thy prison, whirled to that celestial grove.

O honoured guest in Love’s high feast, O bird of the angel-sphere,’Tis cause to weep, if thou wilt keep thy habitation here.
A voice at morn to thee is borne—God whispers to the soul—‘If on the way the dust thou lay, thou soon wilt gain the goal.’
That road be thine toward the Shrine! and lo, in bush and briar,The many slain by love and pain in flower of young desire,
Who on the track fell wounded back and saw not, ere the end,A ray of bliss, a touch, a kiss, a token of the Friend!