XV. Zeyd’s Inspiration.
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Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
More merit’s in a little secret service given,
Than in much more performed when by an eye it’s driven.
Man’s faith and piety on earth are prized of God.
But after death professed, less value have than clod.
The absent and the hidden being thus the best,
The silent mouth and sealed lip surpass the rest.
Then boast not, brother; whatsoever thou hast done,
God knows thy merits; will requite them every one.
The sun requires no other witness but his face.
Man has a greater. God’s his witness. Vast the grace!145
If I proclaim it not, how many are prepared
To witness to each fact! God, angels, men, full wared.
“God will bear witness, angels, and all they who’ve known,”396
That: “Lord there is no other, save th’ Eternal One.”397
When God himself our witness is, who’ll angels need,
That they should share, participate, in His sole deed?
Unless it be that, as the fervent, blazing sun,
Pours forth such beams no mortal eye can look upon.
Just like the bat, man cannot bear full light of day;
So, in despair, he seeks the darkness, shuns noon’s ray.150
Thus, like us, know, the angels are a loving crew,
Who bask in beams of heaven’s Sun, beyond our view.
They say: “Our light we have received from a sun;
As substitutes we shine upon the weak, outrun.”
As new-born moon, or five days old, or at the full,
Each angel has his rank, degree, place, wonderful.
His glorious wings in pairs, two, three, and even, four;398
So that his beams are doubled, trebled, fourfold, more.
Just like the grades that mark the various human minds,
Do differences vast exist in angels’ kinds.155
Thus every man’s companion-angel’s like himself,
Or good, or bad, or high, or low, as china, delf.
When weak-eyed mortals cannot look upon the sun,
They have to seek for taper’s aid, ere they may run.
The Prophet hath declared: “Stars, my disciples are;
They’re lights to them who seek; though devils they may scare.”
If every man had strength, and faculty of sight,
To look straight at the sun, trust him alone for light,
What need were for the stars, or lamps, of feeble ray,
To help them on their path, in quest of source of day?160