Maulana Jalal al-Din Rumi

“ The two absolved from greed, lust, sense, care, fear also;
Each, like a bird uncaged, is free; roams to and fro.89
Should he, birdlike, be whistled back to trap of sense,
Again he sinks, the slave of every vile pretence.
When light of dawn paints bright the blushing sky with red,
Ere orb of day comes forth as bridegroom from his bed,
Shrill chanticleer, as though it were last judgment’s trump,
Calls back to consciousness the sleepers. Up they jump.
The souls return their bodies to inhabit, then;
Each body fraught with thoughts, and words, and deeds again.80 ”

“ The charmer first is caught in toils of greed and lust.
And sees not ’tis the snake has charmed him, bound him fast.90
The snake addresses him: ‘O charmer! See now! Look!
Thy own work thou perceivest, my wiles hast mistook.
Thou charmest in God’s name to make me thy bond-slave,
And lead me captive, make me sport for fool and knave.
The name of God it is that holds me fast enchained;
That name thou usest as my trap. Art not soft-brained?
That name will one day vengeance on thee for me take. ”

“ Thy stomach make void of foul greed’s lust for bread.
Thy heart thou’lt find filled with deep love for Godhead.
Thy infant soul wean from the gross milk of greed,
Then teach it to join, next, in angel’s pure creed.
So long thou remainest in darkness and thrall,
A bantling of Satan thou art, out at call.95
The morsel that brings a pure light to the soul
Is earned by endeavour; not begged with a bowl.
Should oil, upon trimming, extinguish a lamp,
Not oil may we name it; ’tis water; ’tis damp.
The honestly-earned morsel, wisdom imparts;
Gives softness to souls, and a warmness to hearts. ”

“ Should God’s decree encompass thee with blackest night,
The same decree will readily help set thee right.
Should Providence at times thy life to menace seem,
’Twas Providence that gave it, can prolong its gleam.
Should life’s events appear to threaten every way,
God can in heaven prepare a home for thee to stay.
What ’tis thou tremblest at, a special favour count,
Designed to bring thee safe to Zion’s holy mount.
And now we turn again from morals,—they’ve no end,—
To see how fares it with our lion and his friend.380
They came to where the well was. ”

“ Should true believer golden idol light upon,
Will he for worship set it up, anon, anon?
Nay! To the fire he’ll quickly it in wrath consign,
And strip it of the form that makes it sin’s foul sign.650
The gold, abstracted from the idol’s form, is pure.
That form it is corrupts,—can men to sin allure.
The gold’s an essence fixed, produced by nature’s God;
The idol stamp is transitory;—soon downtrod. 209
Thou for one flea to flames thy bed wouldst never give;
For one musquito’s hum, not wish to cease to live. ”

“ Is but a weed plucked up;—a rose blooms where ’twas set.
The night He promulgates; day’s work refrains from act.
Consider! Mind becomes like inorganic fact.
Again, night disappears; the light of day is spread;
And nature shows its marvels; reason wakes from dead.
With darkness comes the sleep that locks our reason fast,
But spirits know not darkness; life’s stream still goes past.
Is’t not that mind’s refreshed in darkest hours of night?
Its silence ’tis gives birth to every voice of light.”145
By contraries are contraries brought forth to view,
From out of darkness was the light created new. ”

“ As ear receives tongue’s plaint of woes.
Through grief, his day is but a dawn;
Each day of sorrow, torment’s pawn.15
My days are waste; take thou no heed,
Thou still are left; my joy, indeed.
Whole seas a fish will never drown;
A poor man’s day seems all one frown.
What boot from counsel to a fool?
Waste not thy words; thy wrath let cool.
Cast off lust’s bonds; stand free from all.
Slave not for pelf; be not greed’s thrall.
Pour rivers into one small gill,
It can but hold its little fill.20
The eye’s a vase that’s ne’er content ”

“ Our wits in love’s affairs stand sore perplexed;
Love only can elucidate love’s text.
The sun alone can well explain the sun.
Wilt see’t expounded? Turn to him alone.85
A shade, ’tis true, of him gives some small hint;
The shining sun surpasses all comment.
A shade, like evening chitchat, sends to sleep,
From sun’s effulgence does full knowledge leap.
That day-orb, still, each eve sets, here below;
The soul-sun, God, shines in eternal glow.
’Mong things extern that orb has not a peer;
But mock suns we can make, our nights to cheer. ”

“ Strike not, then, so rashly, fire’s sparks from thy tongue,
In message or talk, feeble hearers among.
The night is pitch dark; strewn around, cotton beds.
Amongst beds of cotton, ’tis, sparks one most dreads.
He sins who, unmindful of dire consequence,
Lets fall spoken spark,—fires a whole world, immense.50
One rash word may set an assembly ablaze.
Molehills into mountains, and higher, it can raise.
In basis, our souls would appear Jesus-like.
To kill, to resuscitate, words are godlike.
If lifted could be from our souls the dark veil,
Each word of each soul would with miracles trail. ”

“ Give signs of life, though slight;—as babes do in the womb;
So may God grant thee inward light to cheer thy tomb.
And when thou ’scapest from dark and narrow prison there,
Then mayst thou soar from earth beyond the realms of air.
“The spacious land of God” ’tis named in holy writ,344
The land to which the prophets all have gladly flit.
The heart is never lonesome in that vast abode;
Its green trees never wither, frosts no leaves corrode.
If now thou load thyself with sensual burden’s weight,
Fatigued and jaded, faint thou’lt prove beneath their freight.35
In sleep thou bearest no burden ”

“ Jelāl is the key of heaven. Go then, and look upon Jelāl, if thou wish to comprehend the signification of that saying ‘the learned are the heirs of the prophets,’ together with something beyond that, which I will not here specify. He has more learning in every science than any one else upon earth. He explains better, with greater tact and taste, as also more exhaustively, than all others. Were I, with my mere intellect, to study for a hundred years, I could not acquire a tenth part of what he knows. ”

“ The sun sheds a grateful light on the moth. My friends invite me one way; my teacher Shemsu-’d-Dīn beckons me the other way. Comply ye with the summoner of the Lord, and have faith in Him. Departure is inevitable. All being came out of nothing, and again it will be shut up in the prison of nullity. Such is God’s decree from all eternity; and, to decree belongeth unto God, the Most High, the All-Great!”
His son Sultan Veled had been unremitting in his attentions. He wept and sobbed. He was reduced to a shadow. Jelāl therefore said to him: “Bahā’u-’d-Dīn, my son, I am better. ”

“ The light that lights the eye’s the light that’s in the heart.
Eye’s light is but derived from what illumes that part.
The light that lights the heart’s the light that comes of God,
Which lies beyond the reach of sense and reason, clod!
By night we have no light; no colour can we see.
Thus, light we learn by darkness, its converse. ”

“ Compulsion’s creed is sleep among the highwaymen;
Unseasonable bird is mercilessly slain.14245
If thou at God’s signs carp and peck, so finding fault,
Though man thou count thyself, ’tis womanlike assault.
The little sense thou hadst has really taken flight;
A head that has no brains is tail turn’d round to sight.
Ungrateful men are ever cursed of God on earth;
And after death are flung to hell-fire’s vengeful hearth. ”

“ God hath said: ‘O My servants, take ye heed that ye often commemorate Me, so that sincerity may abound.’ The more that sincerity prevails, the more do the rays of the light of truth shine into the heart. The hotter a baker’s oven is, the more bread will it bake; if cool, it will not bake at all. ”

“ Pearls in a mortar pounded are, by chance, sometimes;
Still, they’re esteemed a joy to glad eyes in all climes.15
Then, grains of wheat are cast into the lowly earth;
But golden ears thence spring, a source of glee and mirth.
These, too, are ground to dust in mill;—vile as to show;
Increased in value, thence, bread it becomes, we know.
Again ’tis crushed between the teeth; to chyme it turns,
And feeds the mind, the thoughts, the soul;—in wisdom burns.
The soul, in turn, is subject to the stress of love;
New miracles, as seen, “the sowers marvel”340 prove. ”

“ With spirit of Muhammed thou’lt soon exchange look.
The Qur’ān is the essence of all prophets right.
They were the whales who swam in ocean of God’s might.170
If thou canst read or not, the Qur’ān take to heart,
The saints and prophets study; they were as thou art.
Read thou it carefully; read, mark, digest its tales;
Thy soul, like bird in cage, will long to break its rails. 113
The bird shut up, imprisoned in a little cage,
That seeks not to get out, is ignorant, not sage.
The souls who’ve freed themselves from cages of the flesh,
Are worthy fellow-travellers with prophets, fresh. ”

“ If, like an ass, thou spite the lords of reason’s school?
The ass, that renders service meet unto his lord,
Men slay not. ’Tis the wild ass does them chase afford.
The ass reaps naught of recompense for merit due;
Yet, when he errs, fell punishment awaits him, true.
If man, then, go astray, much more he’s worthy blame;
Most justly shall chastisement visit him with shame.90
The blood of misbelievers righteously is shed,
With sword and arrow, like wild ass on mountain fed.
Their wives and children fall a prey to victor’s hand;
In that they lack true wisdom, cursed of God they stand. ”

“ Do Thou vouchsafe to my weak, erring soul
To see the realm where, voiceless, spirit thoughts may stroll, 224
That so my mind, in glee, on foot or head, may wing
Its flight to the far bourn that parts from nothing, thing,
Careering o’er the boundless fields of ecstasy,
Where fancy joins reality in entity.
Far-reaching more’s nonentity than fancy’s stretch;
And thus, his fancy is a source of woe to wretch.85
Then, being’s narrower far than fancy’s power of wing;
E’en as the full moon wanes, till it becomes a string.
The world of matter and its forms is narrower still ”

“ The hare then: “In this well thy foe takes his repose.
His stronghold is this pit, where he’s secure from woes.
A wise man hides himself at bottom of a well;
For ’tis in solitude heart’s choicest raptures dwell.
Seclusion’s gloom is easier borne than wrongs from men.
Who craves a victor’s mercy, saves his life just then.”
The lion muttered: “Onward come. My arm is strong.
Go look. At home is he? He’ll not live long.” ”

“ On the occasion of a grand religious commemoration at the house of the Perwāna, in the presence of the Sultan Ruknu-’d-Dīn, this monarch was taken unwell, and the exercises were suspended, only, one of the disciples continued to sing and shout.
The Sultan remarked: “How ill-behaved is that man! Does he pretend to be more ecstatic than his teacher Jelālu-’d-Dīn?”
Jelāl heard this, and answered the king: “Thou art unable to withstand an attack of fever. How then canst thou expect a man devoured with an enthusiasm that threatens to swallow up even heaven itself, to calm down on a sudden?” ”

“ He knows not ’tis a bourn that checks him like a chain.
Thy witness is a barrier, bars sight of the Lord;
Thy teacher is a veil, shuts out God’s holy word.
How many infidels, oh! long faith to possess!
Their pride, their honour, stands between them and success. ”

“ Still, water boils through fire, when in a cauldron set.185
The cauldron, like a veil, those lovers keeps apart;
And water’s influence no longer cools fire’s heart.
To outward show, as water, thou mayst rule thy wife;
In stern reality, thou cleavest to her,—thy life.
This attribute, humanity must own its force:
“Man quails to sensual love,” which springs from failing’s source. ”

“ They knock at ev’ry door they see, they beg, they pray:
“The stealer of our courser was a little child.
What horse is this, my master? Seems it not too wild?”235
“O yes, a horse it is; but not the horse you want.
Come to your senses, man; to some one else go chant.”
The soul is void of patency and fellowship.
Thou, like a wine-jar, full within, hast parched lip.
How shouldst thou e’er distinguish red from green or brown,
When these are all the colours unto thee well known?
And when thy mind is dazed by colour’s magic round,
All colour’s lost in one bright light diffused around. ”

“ Or if Thou say the skies and spheres are all too low,
Or find the mines, the seas, a paltry puppet-show,
All this, compared with Thy perfections, is the truth.
Thine is the kingdom; Thine the power to mend all ruth.
Thou art removed from danger, as from nullity.
To non-existences Thou givest being. Why?
He who makes all things grow, can make them wither, too.
For He can all repair, as He can ruin woo.195
Each autumn, vegetation dwindles by His will;
Again ’tis He calls forth the flowers in dale, on hill. ”

“ Fire’s, water’s protection thou’lt have, as thou heedest.
It was not the sea alone Noah, Moses, saved.
Nor sea alone was it, their foes that ingraved.
It was not the fire that stood Abr’am in stead,
Till God conquered Nimrod by gnat in his head.
It was not the mountain that called John to it,300
And drove back pursuers with huge rocks that hit.
It cried: “Hither, John; refuge come take with me.
Thy life I will save from foe’s sharp sword. Come; see.”
“Adieu, master dear; I’m now off to my home.
May’st thou, too, be free, when the judgment shall come. ”

“ One beautiful moonlight night, Jelāl and Shems were together on the terraced roof of the college, and all the inhabitants of Qonya were sleeping on their housetops.
Shems remarked: “See all these poor creatures! They are dead to every sense of their Creator on this beautiful night of God’s decree. Wilt thou not, Jelāl, of thy infinite compassion, wake them up, and let them gain a share in the shower of blessings of this night?” ”

“ Our chief’s companion, on his gauntlet sitting, light;—
Make known, thou phœnix-hunting bird of prey,—
Thou conqueror of foes,—sole,—clear of troops’ array.65
A nation in its millions, one sole man art thou.
Speak! Speak! I cast myself upon thy mercy now!
Instead of anger, what has moved thee to relent,—
To proffer to a foe forgiveness transcendent?”
To him made ‘Alī answer: “For the truth I fight.
God’s servant am I. Slave I’m not to fleshly might.
‘God’s lion’ I’ve been named; not ‘Ravening Wolf of Lust;’
My actions are the proof my faith is in the Just.
God is the Archer. ”

“ Hast ear to hear? Hast mind to recognise the truth?
Know, then, thy moral ear is deaf to godly sooth!
The first who followed sense, and reason—as he thought—
Instead of God’s true light, the devil was, we’re taught.170
He judged: “The fire more noble is than sordid earth;
From fire was I created; clay gave Adam birth.
The stock from whence it springs decides each kind of fruit;
From darkness Adam’s sprung; light at my birth did suit.”
The Lord replied: “’Tis not a question of descent.
Pre-eminence is here the prize of righteous bent.
’Tis not a heritage of worldly wealth to share. ”

“ A dead mate’s love can never more be shown;
A dead mate’s voice will never more be known;190
Love for the living, in the heart and eyes,
Will ever spring; the dead no more can rise.
One Living is there, death that never knows;
Love Him! The life from Him alone still flows.
Love Him, whom saints and prophets all have loved;
Through whom alone we all have lived and moved.
Say not thou canst not to His throne approach ”

“ Thou’lt here perceive how saints hold converse with the Lord.
Come in; and witness water blazing high, as fire.
This is a world where flame like water is;—not dire.
Come. Look on miracles for blessed Abr’am wrought;128
Whose furnace changed to gardens, out of firewood brought.
Death then I underwent, when I was born of thee.
The fear of death swept o’er me, ere my eyes could see.
With birth I ’scaped from prison, narrow, dark, and drear;
Emerging to a world, vast, radiant, bright, and clear.60
Alas! that world, you see, is but a second womb.
Joy, comfort, happiness, are found beyond the tomb. ”

“ It so happened that the ode by Jelāl had just become known at Shīrāz, which commences:—
“Divine love’s voice each instant left and right is heard to sound,
We’re bound for heaven. To witness our departure who’ll be found?”
This ode had captivated the minds of all the men of culture in the city; and this ode Sa’dī selected, wrote it out, and sent it to the prince, with the remark: “A monarch, of auspicious advent, has sprung up in the land of Rome, from whose privacy these are some of the breathings. ”