XIV. The Chinese and Roman Artists.
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Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
That mirror’s purity prefigures their hearts’ trust;
With endless images reflections it incrust.
The formless Form the thousand thousand hidden forms
Flashed in his breast on Moses’ heart, like mirrored storms.
That Form, ’tis true, the heaven of heavens cannot contain;
Nor all the space between the zenith and the main.
These numbered are, and limited within their bounds;
The mirror of the heart is boundless in its rounds.
Here, reason stands aghast, O erring child of sense;
The heart’s with God,—the heart is God,—boundless, immense!65
From all eternity, the figures of all things,
Unnumbered, multitudinous, gleam in heart’s wings.
To all eternity each new-created form
In heart of saint reflected is, most multiform.
His polished heart is cleansed from being’s soiling stain;
And at each moment contemplates fresh beauty’s train.
The outward gilt, the shell, of science they despise;
The banner of real certitude floats where they rise.
They’ve thought abandoned; light and life they’ve truly found;
Their breasts and hearts are filled with love’s inspiring sound.70
Death, that dread thing of which all mankind stand in fear,
Is laughed and mocked at by the saints, when it draws near.
No man has power to dominate their tranquil minds.
The shell may injured be; the pearl harm never finds.
The rhetor’s art, the jurist’s skill, they set at naught;
But poverty, abasement, to themselves they’ve taught.
The scenes of all eight paradises375 are consumed
In that full blaze with which their holy heart’s illumed.
They’re more exalted than the heavens and what’s beyond;
Their place is in the court of love divine, all-fond.75