PROLOGUE
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Iqbal, Muhammad, Sir and Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
It causes dust to soar to the Pleiades
And a drop of water swell to the breadth of the sea.
It turns silence into the din of Judgement Day,
It makes the foot of the partridge red with blood of the hawk.
Arise and pour pure wine into my cup, 85
Pour moonbeams into the dark night of my thought,
That I may lead home the wanderer
And imbue the idle looker-on with restless impatience;
And advance hotly on a new quest
And become known as the champion of a new spirit; 90
And be to people of insight as the pupil to the eye,
And sink into the ear of the world, like a voice;
And exalt the worth of Poesy
And sprinkle the dry herbs with my tears.
Inspired by the genius of the Master of Rúm,[26] 95
I rehearse the sealed book of secret lore.
His soul is the source of the flames,
I am but as the spark that gleams for a moment.
His burning candle consumed me, the moth;
His wine overwhelmed my goblet. 100
The Master of Rúm transmuted my earth to gold
And clothed my barren dust with beauty.
The grain of sand set forth from the desert,
That it might win the radiance of the sun.
I am a wave and I will come to rest in his sea, 105
That I may make the glistening pearl mine own.
I who am drunken with the wine of his song
Will draw life from the breath of his words.
‘Twas night: my heart would fain lament,
The silence was filled with my cries to God. 110
I was complaining of the sorrows of the world
And bewailing the emptiness of my cup.
At last mine eye could endure no more,
Broken with fatigue it went to sleep.
There appeared the Master, formed in the mould of Truth, 115
Who wrote the Koran of Persia.[27]
He said, “O frenzied lover,
Take a draught of love’s pure wine.
Strike the chords of thine heart and rouse a tumultuous strain,
Dash thine head against the cupping-glass and thine eye against the lancet! 120