V. The Lion and the Beasts.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
The sense of colour-seeing’s not from light distinct.
So, too, the sudden rainbow of our mind’s instinct.
From sunlight, and the like, all outer colours rise;
The inward tints that mark our minds, from God’s sunrise.
The light that lights the eye’s the light that’s in the heart.
Eye’s light is but derived from what illumes that part.
The light that lights the heart’s the light that comes of God,
Which lies beyond the reach of sense and reason, clod!
By night we have no light; no colour can we see.
Thus, light we learn by darkness, its converse. Agree!245
A seeing of the light, perception is of tints;
And these distinguished are through darkness’ gloomy hints.
Our griefs and sorrows were by God first introduced,
That joy to sense apparent thence should be reduced.
Occult things, thus, by converse, grow apparent, all.
Since God has no converse, apparent He can’t fall.
Sight first saw light, and then the colours saw.
From converse converse stands forth, as Frank from Negro.
By converse of the light, distinguish we the light;
A converse ’tis that converse shows unto our sight.250
The light of God no converse has in being’s bound;
By converse, then, man has not its distinction found.
Our eyes cannot distinguish God, decidedly;
Though He distinguish Moses and the Mount from thee.
Form and ideal, gnat and lion, word and sense,
Sound of the voice and thought, learnst thou by dissidence,
The words and sounds take rise from exercise of thought.
The sea of thought is where? Of this thou knowest naught.
Words, as thou seest, rise as waves upon the sea.
The sea of thought thou knowest great, immense to be.255
The waves of thought arise, by breath of knowledge raised;
They take the forms of words, of sounds, which ear has seized.
Through words have forms arisen, and passed away again;
As waves still lose themselves beneath the ocean’s main.
From realm of formlessness, existence doth take form;
And fades again therein: “To Him we must return.”161
Each moment, then, for thee death and return await,
As Ahmed hath declared: “Life’s transitory.”162 Wait!
Thoughts, bolts are, shot by God into the air like dust.
Whose thoughts can reach to God, through densest air of lust?260