XV. Zeyd’s Inspiration.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
The Prophet asked one morn of Zeyd, in tender tone,376
“How art thou, dear disciple, faithful to the bone?”
“I’m pious;—a believer,” Zeyd replied; and he
Inquired again: “What proof of faith resides in thee?”
He said: “Whole days I’ve burnt with parching fever’s thirst;
By night I’ve watched; with love’s sweet pangs my heart’s nigh burst.
Thus have I traversed days’ and nights’ enduring space,
As point of spear through shield makes way in war’s embrace.
For, in love’s view, the church of faith one body is;
Ten million years, one instant, are alike, when His.5
The past eternity and future join in one;
Though reason cannot compass how the marvel’s done.”
The Prophet then: “Bring forth some souvenir from thence,
Shall satisfy all men of judgment and of sense.”
Said Zeyd: “As men behold the sky above their heads,
So I survey the heavens, and all their flowery meads.
Eight paradises,377 seven deep hells,378 are in my view,
As patent as the idol to its silly crew.
Apart, and one by one, I can discern all men,
As wheat and barley well are known to miller’s ken.10
I see who’s heavenward bound, who takes the other road;
As men distinguish fish from snake in walks abroad.”
’Tis thus that saints, within the bounds of present life,
See who’ll be blessed, who cursed, when tried in judgment’s strife;
Before each soul contracts the sins will cause its shame;
While yet in mother’s womb,—while yet without a name.
The wretch is he conceived for wretchedness’ sad thirst.
Each soul is marked for future bliss or woe, at first.379
The body, as a mother, bears within a soul.
Death’s but the throes that launch the spirit to its goal.15
Departed souls are all agog at each fresh birth,
To see what class the new-born enters in its mirth.
The blacks presume ’twill prove to be of their dark gang;
The pale-faced Romans hope they’ll profit by the pang.
But when the little stranger shows itself at last,
No room remains for doubt; the question’s judged and cast.
The new-born black is borne in triumph by its kind;
The rosy-cheeked fair bantling’s claimed by Roman mind.
Until its birth the child’s a riddle to all men.
Who knows an unborn infant’s rare sage in this glen.20