VIII. The Harper.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
If one lamp from another should be lighted; well!
The light received from this, has come from that one’s cell.
And so, if through a thousand wicks the light should pass,
Who sees the last enjoys the gift of all the mass.
The light of this last lamp’s as pure as is the whole;
No difference is there. And thus ’tis with the soul.
The light diffused by teachers in these latter days,
No other is than what was shown by earlier rays.
Our Prophet said: “The breathings of the Lord your God,254
In these your days of pilgrimage, on all sides prod.45
Your ears and minds lend ye to all signs of the times;
Perchance ye may inhale those breathings in these climes.”
One breathing came and found you. Straightway it was gone.
To all who sought, new life it gave. It then had done.
Another breathing’s come. Be ye not unprepared.
Ye may not let it go by. Something must be shared.
It found your souls on fire. ’Tis thence they cease to burn.
Your souls it found all corpses. Life it made return.
Your fiery souls by it all quickly were puffed out.
Dead souls of yours by it began aloud to shout.50
Their present calm, and this vivacity’s from heaven;
Resembling not the turbulence by which man’s driven.
One breathing from the Lord, when blown on earth and air,
Ill qualities converts straight into all that’s fair.
For fear lest any breathing such as this thee shake,
Read thou the text: “They shunned the task to undertake.”255
Had not “they shrunk from it,” where now would’st thou have been?
Had they not feared, would’st thou this grade have ever seen?
But yesterday an opening gleamed for better things;
Till greed for fleshly morsels stopped the way of kings.55
For sake of some such morsel Luqmān was made bail.256
The time’s now that for Luqmān morsel’d not avail.
The troubles we endure are all for morsel’s sake.
Be Luqmān. Thou’lt extract the thorn that makes thee ache.
A thorn or chafing hurt not Luqmān’s horny hand.
Through greed thou lackest the discipline made him so bland.
The thing thou thoughtest a date-palm, know, is but a thorn.
Ungrateful, uninformed thou art, now, as when born.
The soul of Luqmān was a vineyard of the Lord.
Why then into his soul did thorn pierce like a sword?60