1. God save a bird on a bán tree, a bird that has revealed to me the true story
2. How the loved ones bound the saddles on their camels and then gat them away at dawn.
3. I journeyed—and in my heart for their sake was a blazing fire because of their departure—
4. Striving to outpace them in the darkness of the night, calling to them, and then following their track.
5. I had no guide in pursuing them except a perfumed breath of their love.
6. The women raised the curtain, the darkness became light, and the camels journeyed on because of the moonshine.
7. Then I let my tears pour in front of the camels, and the riders said, 'When did this river flow?'
8. And were unable to cross it. I said, 'My tears rolled in streams.'
9. ’Tis as though the thunderclaps at the gleam of the lightnings and the passing of the clouds at the fall of rain
10. Were the palpitation of hearts at the flash of teeth and the flow of tears for travellers who rode away.
11. O thou who likenest the lissomeness of the tall forms (of the loved ones) to the softness of the fresh verdant bough,
12. If thou hadst reversed the comparison, as I have done, thou wouldst have taken a sound view;
13. For the softness of the branches is like the lissomeness of the tall forms, and the rose of the meadow is like the rosy blush of shame.
1. 'A bird on a bán tree,' i.e. the Prophet's spirit in his body.
'The true story,' i.e. the Tradition concerning the descent of God to the terrestrial heaven.
2. 'How the loved ones,' etc., i.e. how God descended into the night of phenomenal forms and 'gat Him away at dawn', that is, manifested Himself in the intermediate world, which, like the dawn, is light mingled with darkness; for this manifestation is impure in comparison with the purity and holiness of the Godhead per se.
4. 'Following their track': he refers to the investiture with Divine qualities.
5. 'A perfumed breath,' alluding to the habit of guides, who on losing their way in desert places try to recover it by smelling the earth.
6. This verse refers to Kor. xxxiv, 22: 'when the terror shall be removed from their hearts,' etc.
7. 'The riders,' i.e. the angels mentioned in Kor. ii, 206.
8. 'And were unable to cross it,' because these tears were shed in the grief of parting, and the Heavenly Host lack this emotion, for they are not veiled from God: hence they are not allowed to traverse this station.
11-13. The author says that, in accordance with the real relation subsisting between God and His creatures, they should be connected with Him, not He with them. Thus the supple bough should be compared to the form of the Divine Beloved and the rose to His cheeks, not vice versâ, as
happens in those Traditions which attribute human qualities to God, although in reality He is the eternal source of such qualities and therefore incomparable.
1. O men of intelligence and understanding, I am distraught between the sun and the gazelles.
2. He who forgets Suhá is not forgetful, but he who forgets the sun is forgetful.
3. Let him offer himself to his herd, for gifts open the mouth to utter praise.
4. Verily, she is an Arab girl, belonging by origin to the daughters of Persia, yea, verily.
5. Beauty strung for her a row of fine pearly teeth, white and pure as crystal.
6. I boded ill from her unveiling, and at that moment her loveliness and splendour affrighted me.
7. From those twain I suffered two deaths: thus hath the Koran revealed her.
8. I said, 'Wherefore did thy unveiling affright me?' (She answered), 'Thy foes have trysted to attack thee when the sun shines.'
9. I said, 'I am in a guarded demesne of black hair that hides thee: let it fall at their coming.'
10. This poem of mine is without rhyme: I intend by it only Her.
11. The word 'Her' is my aim, and for Her sake I am not fond of bartering except (with) 'Give and take' (há wa-há). 1
1. 'Between the sun and the gazelles,' referring to Kor. lxv, 12: 'The Divine command descendeth between them' (viz. the heavens and the earth).
2. The heedless man is not he who neglects what is
invisible, like the star Suhá, but he who neglects what is visible and manifest, like the sun.
3. 'Let him offer himself to his herd,' etc., i.e. let him sacrifice himself for the sake of those whom he loves, and then they will praise him.
4. 'An Arab girl,' i.e. one of the Muḥammadan kinds of knowledge.
'Belonging by origin to the daughters of Persia': for the foreign and barbarous idiom is more ancient than the Arabic.
6. 'I boded ill from her unveiling': when a woman unveiled herself to an Arab with no particular motive, he used to regard it as a sign that she was unlucky to him, and he used to be afraid in consequence.
7. 'Two deaths,' i.e. dying to (becoming unconscious of) others, and dying to himself, so that he remained with her in virtue of her, not in virtue of himself.
'Thus hath the Koran revealed her,' in reference to Kor. xl, 11: 'Thou hast caused us to die twice.'
8. 'Thy foes,' etc., i.e. they will beguile thee with a form resembling mine at the moment when I manifest my essence to thee, i.e. thy desire to obtain possession of my essence will deceive thee and make thee imagine that the form in which I appear to thee is I myself.
9. 'I am in a guarded demesne,' etc., as it is said of the Prophet: 'for He causes a guard (of angels) to go before and behind him' (Kor. lxxii, 27), that he might be in no doubt concerning his inspiration. This is the meaning of my verse, 'At night the angels descended upon my heart and circled it like the sphere that circles the pole-star.'
10. 'This poem of mine is without rhyme,' i.e. it has no recurring rhyme-letter (rawí), which in a rhymed poem would invariably precede the há.
'I intend by it only Her' (or, as the author expresses it, only the letter (há), i.e. 'I have no connexion except with Her, since my connexion with the phenomenal world is entirely for Her sake, in so far as She reveals Herself there.'
1. Let me never forget my abode at Wána and my saying to camel-riders as they departed and arrived,
2. 'Stay beside us a while that we may be comforted thereby, for I swear by those whom I love that I am consoled (by thinking of you).'
3. If they set out they will journey with the most auspicious omen, and if they halt they will alight at the most bountiful halting-place.
4. ’Twas in the glen of the valley of Qanát I met them, and my last sight of them was between an-Naqá and al-Mushalshal.
5. They watch every place where the camels find pasturage, but they pay no heed to the heart of a lover led astray.
6. O camel-driver, have pity on a youth whom you see breaking colocynth when he bids farewell,
7. Laying his palms crosswise on his bosom to still a heart that throbbed at the noise of the (moving) howdah.
8. They say, 'Patience!' but grief is not patient. What can I do, since patience is far from me?
9. Even if I had patience and were ruled by it, my soul would not be patient. How, therefore, when I have it not?
1. 'Wána,' i.e.. the station of confession and shortcoming and failure to pay due reverence to the majesty of the Divine presence.
'Camel-riders,' i.e. the saints and favourites of God.
5. 'Every place where the camels find pasturage,' i.e. the objects to which our aspirations tend.
6. 'O camel-driver': he addresses the Divine voice which calls the aspirations towards it.
7. 'Breaking colocynth,' i.e. having his face distorted with anguish (for when colocynth is broken its pungent smell
causes the eyes to water). Imru’u ’l-Qays says (cf. Ahlwardt, The Díwáns, 204, No. 26): [Ar. verse]
1. The full moon appeared in the night of hair, and the black narcissus bedewed the rose.
2. A tender girl is she: the fair women were confounded by her, and her radiance outshone the moon.
3. If she enters into the mind, that imagination wounds her: how, then, can she be perceived by the eye?
4. She is a phantom of delight that melts away when we think of her: she is too subtle for the range of vision.
5. Description sought to explain her, but she was transcendent, and description became dumb.
6. Whenever it tries to qualify her, it always retires baffled.
7. If one who seeks her will give rest to his beasts, others will not give rest to the beast of reflection.
8. She is a joy that transports from the rank of humanity every one who burns with love of her,
9. From jealousy that her clear essence should be mingled with the filth which is in the tanks.
10. She excels the sun in splendour: her form is not to be compared with any.
11. The heaven of light is under the sole of her foot: her diadem is beyond the spheres.
1. 'The full moon,' etc., i.e. the Divine manifestation appeared in the unseen world of mysterious knowledge.
'And the black narcissus,' etc., i.e. the weeping eye bedewed the red cheeks. He means to say that the centre of Essential manifestation replenished the Divine names.
2. 'The fair women,' i.e. the attendant Names.
7. 'One who seeks her,' i.e. the gnostic who is aware that he cannot reach her.
'His beasts,' i.e. his aspirations.
'Others,' i.e. men of understanding who assert that God is known by logical demonstration.
8. 'Transports from the rank of humanity,' i.e. to the next world, in which the disembodied spirits assume different forms.
9. 'The filth which is in the tanks,' i.e. the impurity and darkness of nature in the corporeal world.
11. Cf. Kor. xx, 4, and the Tradition that God, before He created the Throne, was in a dense cloud, and neither above it nor beneath it was any air.
1. The loved ones of my heart—where are they? Say, by God, where are they?
2. As thou sawest their apparition, wilt thou show to me their reality?
3. How long, how long was I seeking them! and how often did I beg to be united with them,
4. Until I had no fear of being parted from them, and yet I feared to be amongst them.
5. Perchance my happy star will hinder their going afar from me,
6. That mine eye may be blest with them, and that I may not ask, 'Where are they?'
1. 'The loved ones,' i.e. the sublime spirits.
2. 'Their apparition,' i.e. their manifestation in the world of similitude.
4. 'I feared to be amongst them,' i.e. lest their radiance should consume me.
5. 'My happy star,' i.e. the Divine favour predestined to me.
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