III
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Iqbal, Muhammad, Sir and Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
Showing that the Self is strengthened by Love.[36]
The luminous point whose name is the Self
Is the life-spark beneath our dust.
By Love it is made more lasting, 325
More living, more burning, more glowing.
From Love proceeds the radiance of its being
And the development of its unknown possibilities.
Its nature gathers fire from Love,
Love instructs it to illumine the world. 330
Love fears neither sword nor dagger,
Love is not born of water and air and earth.
Love makes peace and war in the world,
The Fountain of Life is Love’s flashing sword.
The hardest rocks are shivered by Love’s glance: 335
Love of God at last becomes wholly God.
Learn thou to love, and seek to be loved:
Seek an eye like Noah’s, a heart like Job’s!
Transmute thy handful of earth into gold,
Kiss the threshold of a Perfect Man![37] 340
Like Rúmí, light thy candle
And burn Rúm in the fire of Tabríz![38]
There is a beloved hidden within thine heart:
I will show him to thee, if thou hast eyes to see.
His lovers are fairer than the fair, 345
Sweeter and comelier and more beloved.
By love of him the heart is made strong
And earth rubs shoulders with the Pleiades.
The soil of Najd was quickened by his grace
And fell into a rapture and rose to the skies.[39] 350
In the Moslem’s heart is the home of Mohammed,
All our glory is from the name of Mohammed.
Sinai is but an eddy of the dust of his house,
The sanctuary of the Ka’ba is his dwelling-place.
Eternity is less than a moment of his time, 355
Eternity receives increase from his essence.
He slept on a mat of rushes,
But the crown of Chosroes was under his people’s feet.
He chose the nightly solitude of Mount Hirá,
And he founded a state and laws and government. 360
He passed many a night with sleepless eyes