XIV
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Iqbal, Muhammad, Sir and Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
What is the use of heaven-surveying imagination?” 1270
Once on a time, laying hold of the skirt of the mountain,
Ganges said to Himalaya:
“O thou mantled in snow since the morn of creation,
Thou whose form is girdled with streams,
God made thee a partner in the secrets of heaven, 1275
But deprived thy foot of graceful gait.
He took away from thee the power to walk:
What avails this sublimity and stateliness?
Life springs from perpetual movement:
Motion constitutes the wave’s whole existence.” 1280
When the mountain heard this taunt from the river,
He puffed angrily like a sea of fire,
And answered: “Thy wide waters are my looking-glass;
Within my bosom are a hundred rivers like thee.
This graceful gait of thine is an instrument of death: 1285
Whoso goeth from Self is meet to die.
Thou hast no knowledge of thine own case,
Thou exultest in thy misfortune: thou art a fool!
O born of the womb of the revolving sphere,
A fallen-in bank is better than thou! 1290
Thou hast made thine existence an offering to the ocean,
Thou hast thrown the rich purse of thy life to the highwayman.
Be self-contained like the rose in the garden,
Do not go to the florist in order to smell sweet!
To live is to grow in thyself 1295
And gather roses from thine own flower-bed.
Ages have gone by and my foot is fast in earth:
Dost thou fancy that I am far from my goal?
My being grew and reached the sky,
The Pleiades sank to rest under my skirts; 1300
Thy being vanishes in the ocean,
But on my crest the stars bow their heads.
Mine eye sees the mysteries of heaven,
Mine ear is familiar with angels’ wings.
Since I glowed with the heat of unceasing toil, 1305
I amassed rubies, diamonds, and other gems.
I am stone within, and in the stone is fire:
Water cannot pass over my fire!”
Art thou a drop of water? Do not break at thine own feet,