1. There is a war of love between the entrails and the large eyes, and because of that war the heart is in woe.
2. Dark-lipped and Swart is she, her mouth honeyed: the
evidence of the bees is the white honey which they produce.
3. Full-ankled, a darkness o’er a moon; in her cheek a red blush; she is a bough growing on hills.
4. Beautiful, decked with ornaments; she is not wedded; she shows teeth like hailstones for lustre and coolness.
5. She keeps aloof in earnest, though she plays at loving in jest; and death lies between that earnest and jest.
6. Never did the night darken but there came, following it, the breath of dawn: ’tis known from of old.
7. And never do the East winds pass over meadows containing coy virgins with swelling breasts
8. But they bend the branches and whisper, as they blow, of the flowery scents which they carry.
9. I asked the East wind to give me news of them. The wind said, 'What need hast thou of the news?
10. I left the pilgrims in al-Abraqán and in Birk al-Ghimád and in Birk al-Ghamím near at hand;
11. 'They are not settled in any country.' I said to the wind, 'Where can they take refuge when the steeds of my desire are pursuing them?'
12. Far be the thought! They have no abode save my mind. Wherever I am, there is the full moon. Watch and see!
13. Is not my imagination her place of rising and my heart her place of setting? for the ill-luck of the bán and gharab trees hath ceased.
14. The raven does not croak in our encampments or make any rift in the harmony of our union.
1. He says: 'There is a war of love between the world of intermixture and cohesion and the Divine Ideas, because this world desires and loves them inasmuch as its life is wholly derived from their beholding it. Nothing but this natural world hinders the hearts of gnostics from perceiving the Divine Ideas; accordingly the heart is in woe and distress because of the war that continually exists between them.'
2. 'Dark-lipped and Swart is she': he refers to one of the Divine Ideas, whom he describes as having dark lips on account of the mysteries which she contains.
'The evidence of the bees': he mentions the bees because they have immediate experience of the inspiration which the hearts of gnostics desire.
3. 'Full-ankled,' i.e. mighty and terrible, with reference to sáq (Kor. lxviii, 42) and to Kor. lxxv, 29.
'A darkness o’er a moon,' i.e. she is hidden save to the eye of contemplation.
'A bough growing on hills,' referring to the quality of self-subsistence which is revealed in Divine manifestations.
4. 'Ornaments,' i.e. the Divine Names.
'Not wedded,' i.e. no human being has ever known her.
'Teeth like hailstones,' referring to the purity of her manifestation.
5. 'She keeps aloof in earnest,' i.e. she is really inaccessible.
'Death,' i.e. anguish for those who love her.
6. 'Never did the night darken,' etc., i.e. every esoteric mystery has its corresponding exoteric manifestation; God is both the Inward and the Outward.
7. 'The East winds,' i.e. the spiritual influences of Divine manifestation.
'Meadows,' i.e. hearts.
'Coy virgins,' etc., i.e. subtle forms of Divine wisdom and sensuous knowledge derived from the station of shame and beauty.
8. 'They bend the branches,' i.e. the Self-subsistent inclines towards those who subsist in phenomena.
11. 'No country in particular,' etc., i.e. they do not remain in any one state, referring to settlement in the station of change, which theosophists consider to be the most exalted of all the stations.
13. The bán tree suggests bayn (separation), and the gharab tree ghurbat (exile).
1. O dove on the bán tree at Dhát al-Ghaḍá, I am oppressed by the burden thou hast laid upon me.
2. Who can support the anguish of love? Who can drain the bitter draught of destiny?
3. I say in my grief and burning passion, 'O would that he who caused my sickness had tended me when I am sick!'
4. He passed by the house-door mocking, hiding himself, veiling his head and turning away.
5. His veiling did me no hurt; I was only hurt by his having turned away from me.
1. 'O dove,' i.e. the Absolute Wisdom.
'Dhát al-Ghaḍá,' referring to states of self-mortification.
'The burden': cf. Kor. xxxiii, 72.
4. 'He passed,' etc., referring to Divine thoughts which flash upon the mind and are gone in a moment.
5. i.e. I am necessarily veiled from God, but God's turning away from me is caused by some quality in me of which I am ignorant and which I cannot remove until God enables me to know what it is.
1. O camel-driver, turn aside at Sal‘ and halt by the bán tree of al-Mudarraj,
2. And call to them, imploring their pity and grace, 'O my princes, have ye any consolation?'
3. At Ráma, between an-Naqá and Ḥájir, is a girl enclosed in a howdah.
4. Oh, her beauty—the tender maid! Her fairness gives light like lamps to one travelling in the dark.
5. She is a pearl hidden in a shell of hair as black as jet,
6. A pearl for which reflection dives and remains unceasingly in the deeps of that ocean.
7. He who looks upon her deems her to be a gazelle of the
sand-hills because of her neck and the loveliness of her gestures.
8. ’Tis as though she were the morning sun in Aries, crossing the degrees of the zodiac at their farthest height.
9. If she lifts her veil or uncovers her face, she holds cheap the rays of the bright dawn.
10. I called to her, between the guarded pasture and Ráma, 'Who will help a man that alighted at Sal‘ in good hope?
11. Who will help a man lost in a desert, dismayed, confounded in his wits, miserable?
12. Who will help a man drowned in his tears, intoxicated by the wine of passion for those well-set teeth?
13. Who will help a man burned by his sighs, distraught by the beauty of those spacious eyebrows?'
14. The hands of Love have played at their will with his heart, and he commits no sin in that which he seeks.
1. 'Halt by the bán tree of al-Mudarraj': he says, addressing the Divine messenger which calls the aspirations that seek to know and behold Him, 'Appear to me in the station of self-subsistence and lovingkindness gradually, not suddenly, lest I perish.'
2. 'And call to them,' i.e. to the Divine Names.
3. 'Ráma,' one of the stations of abstraction and isolation.
'Between an-Naqá and Ḥájir,' between the white hill and the most inaccessible veil, to which the hearts of mystics can never attain.
'A girl enclosed in a howdah,' i.e. the Essential Knowledge contained in the hearts of some gnostics.
4. 'To one travelling in the dark,' i.e. to those who ascend and journey in the night (like the Prophet).
6. God is beyond the reach of mental effort; He is revealed by Divine favour to a heart empty of all thoughts.
8. 'Crossing the degrees of the zodiac,' etc., in reference to the magnification and glory which the seer feels in himself as he continues to contemplate her.
10. 'Sal‘,' one of the stations of Divine sanctity.
12. 'In his tears,' i.e. in the knowledge that comes of contemplation.
'Wine,' i.e. every science that inspires joy and rapture in the human soul, e.g. the science of the Divine perfection.
'Those well-set teeth,' i.e. the grades of knowledge of God.
13. 'Those spacious eyebrows,' i.e. the station between the two Wazírs and Imáms. He alludes to the station of the Quṭb.
1. Who will show me her of the dyed fingers? Who will show me her of the honeyed tongue?
2. She is one of the girls with swelling breasts who guard their honour, tender, virgin, and beautiful,
3. Full moons over branches: they fear no waning.
4. In a garden of my body's country is a dove perched on a bán bough,
5. Dying of desire, melting with passion, because that which befell me hath befallen her;
6. Mourning for a mate, blaming Time, who shot her unerringly, as he shot me.
7. Parted from a neighbour and far from a home! Alas, in my time of severance, for my time of union!
8. Who will bring me her who is pleased with my torment? I am helpless because of that with which she is pleased.
1. 'Her of the dyed fingers': he means the phenomenal power by which the Eternal power is hidden according to the doctrine of some scholastic theologians. He says, 'Who will impart to me the truth of this matter, so far as knowledge thereof is possible?' He wishes to know whether God manifests Himself therein or not. The author denies such manifestation, but some mystics and the Mu‘tazilites allow it, while the Ṣúfís among the Ash‘arites leave the question undecided.
4. 'A dove,' etc., i.e. a spiritual Prophetic essence which appeared in the incommunicable self-subsistence. He refers to the belief of some Ṣúfís that Man cannot be invested with the Divine Self-subsistence.
5. 'Dying of desire,' etc., with reference to Kor. iii, 29, 'Follow me, that God may love you,' and Kor. v, 59, 'He loves them, and they love Him.'
6. 'A mate,' i.e. the Universal Form.
'Blaming Time,' because the forms belonging to the world of similitude are limited by Time in that world.
7. 'A neighbour,' i.e. a gnostic who became veiled from his Lord by his 'self' after having subsisted by his Lord and for the sake of his Lord.
'A home,' i.e. his natural constitution, whenever he returns to it.
1. Oh, the traitress! She has left bitten by her viper-like locks one who would fain approach her,
2. And she bends her soft eye and melts him and leaves him sick on his bed.
3. She shot the arrows of her glances from the bow of an eyebrow, and on whatever side I came I was killed.
1. 'The traitress,' i.e. a deceitful Attribute, which caused one who sought her to become enamoured of the mysterious sciences derived from the Divine majesty and beauty.
2. 'His bed,' i.e. his body.
3. He describes the 'passing away' produced by contemplation of the Divine Ideas.
This text is in the public domain and free to read here. If you would like it typeset, annotated and bound, the Hidden Lantern edition is available in print.
Paperback on AmazonKindle editionAbout this edition