XI. The Lion’s Hunt, in Company.
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Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
He that will lose his life for God’s sake, hath it still;
“All perisheth” hath then no power his soul to kill.
He’s of th’ excepted; not of those to perish doomed.
For, who’s excepted, saved is he. His spring hath bloomed.
But he that, in God’s court, of “me” and “thee” shall prate,
Will be cut off;—far banished from the heavenly gate.
A man once came and gaily knocked at a friend’s door.
The other asked: “Who’s there? Is this a threshing-floor?”45
“’Tis I,” said he. “O then thou straight mayest go away.
’Tis dinner-time. Mature, not crude, must be who’d stay.
Thou’rt thou? Most crude thou art; by rawness’ self estranged.
By fire of trial those crude humours must be changed.
’Tis fire matures the crude. Let absence be the fire,
Shall purge thee of thyself, burn out all selfish mire.”
Away he went in anguish; travelled a whole year;
Saw not his friend; so pined with yearning, anxious fear;
Matured his soul with suffering’s searching throes and pains.
Then sought the door from whence he’d been repulsed, again.50
He knocked anew,—his heart with many fears oppressed,
Lest from his lip some word unwelcome drop confessed.
Within, the question’s heard: “Who knocks at my street door?”
He answered: “Thy own second self;—though all too poor.”
The invitation followed: “Let myself walk in.
My cot’s too small for two selves to find room therein.
The thread’s not double in a needle’s single eye.
As thou’rt now single, enter. Room thou’lt find. Pray, try!”
The thread and needle have relation, each to each;
For needle’s eye a camel’s far beyond all reach.55
How shall a camel ever be so fine and slim
Unless long fasting his redundant flesh should skim?
The hand of God is wanted, then, to make it pass;—
The God who by His word creates both man and grass.
Impossibilities are possibles to Him;
The stubbornest is docile when His will curbs whim.
The blind from birth, the leper, e’en the dead, arise,
Whole, sound, whene’er th’ Omnipotent “Come forth” but cries.
E’en non-existence, death of death, at His command,
Starts into life, compelled by His supreme demand.60
Recite, my friend: “Each day He’s busied with a work:”335
And know, He’s never idle, unemployed to lurk.