XII. Joseph and the Mirror.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
That conversation closed, said Joseph to his guest:
“What gift, my friend, hast brought in token of thy zest?”
To go with empty hands and visit friends long missed,
Is like a man who goes to mill without his grist.
E’en God will ask His creatures in the judgment day:
“What offerings have you brought to meet your Maker? Say!
‘Alone, and empty-handed? Is it thus you come?
E’en as We first created you? Gifts left at home?’341
What have you brought as timely offerings in your hands?
What are the gifts with which you’d grace your new life’s lands?25
Or, was it that you’d no belief in this return?
Our promise of this day by you was laughed to scorn?
If you denied thus the hope to be My guest,
Then dust and ashes wait you in My realm, at best.
If you did not deny it, whence your empty hands?
How come you to a friend’s gate, scorning just demands?”
Put by a little from thy daily meat and drink,
So shalt thou have a store for offerings’ binding link.
“Sleep little” when thou art of those “who lay them down.”342
“Of mornings,” be of them who “ask for pardon’s crown.”34330
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; borne thou art, instead.
Fatigue is thence recruited;—strength regains its head.
Know then, thy sleep’s a foretaste of what is to come,
From the rapt state of saints arriving at their home.
The saints were well prefigured by the “Sleepers Seven.”345
“Their sleep,” “their stretchings,” “their awaking,” lead to heaven.
Without the least exertion on their parts by acts,
The “right and left-hand registers” draw them by facts.
The “right-hand register” ’s the record of good deeds;346
The “left-hand register” ’s the list of fleshly greeds.34740