Message

A MESSAGE FROM THE EAST
AUTHOR’S PREFACE From early youth Goethe’s versatile mind

was attracted to Oriental ideas. While studying
The impulse that brought forth A Message from law at Strasbourg, he met that famous and
the East was provided by the West‐Oestlicher venerable figure of German literature, Herder,
Divan of the German “Philosopher of Life,” the influence of whose companionship he
Goethe, about which Germany’s Jewish poet, acknowledges in his autobiography. Herder
Heine, writes: did not know Persian. Nevertheless, because of
his preoccupation with morals, he was
This is a bouquet of acknowledgment by
profoundly interested in Sa‘di’s writings, so
the West to the East... The Divan bears
much so that he translated parts of the Gulistan
witness to the fact that the West,
disgusted with its weak and cold
into German. The poetry of Khwajah Hafiz did
spirituality, seeks warmth from the not appeal to him very much. Drawing the
East’s breast. attention of his contemporaries to Sa‘di, he
writes: “We have written a lot of poetry in the
What influences and circumstances led to the
style of Hafiz. What we now need to do is to
writing of the poems comprising the Divan—a
follow Sa‘di.” However, despite his interest in
title chosen by Goethe himself—which are
Persian literature, there is little trace of the
among his best works, is a question for
influence of that literature either in his verse or
answering which it is necessary to give a brief
in his prose writings. Similarly, Goethe’s other
account of the movement known in the history
contemporary, Schiller, who died before the
of German literature as the Oriental
advent of the Oriental movement, is free from
movement. It was originally my intention to
Oriental influences, although it should not be
discuss the said movement in some detail in
overlooked that he borrowed the plot of his
this Preface, but, unfortunately, much of the
drama Turandukht [Turandot in German]
material necessary for that purpose was
from Maulana Nizami’s story about the
unavailable in India. Paul Horn, the author of
daughter of the King of the Fourth Realm (Haft
A History of Persian Literature, has in an article
Paikar), beginning with a verse which
discussed the question of the extent to which
[translated into English] runs thus:
Goethe was indebted to Persian poets, but I
“He said that among Russian lands
was unable to obtain, whether from any library
There was a city as fair as a bride.”
in India or from Germany, the issue of the Nord
und Sud in which the article was published. In 1812, Von Hammer published a complete
Consequently, I have been compelled to rely in translation of the Divan of Hafiz, and it was
writing this Preface partly on what I retain in this event that set on foot the Oriental
my memory from my personal study in the movement in German literature. Goethe was
past and partly on Mr. Charles Remy’s brief, sixty‐five years old at that time—a time when
but very useful, monograph on the subject. the decline of the German nation had reached
64 Collected Poetical Works of Iqbal
its nadir in every respect. Goethe was not Apart from Hafiz, Goethe is indebted for his
temperamentally attuned to an active part in ideas to Shaikh ‘Attar, Sa‘di, Firdausi, and
his country’s political movements. His restless Islamic literature in general. He has even
and high‐soaring spirit, tired of the conflicts written a few ghazals with rhymes and rhyme‐
then endemic in Europe, sought and found a adjuncts. He freely uses Persian metaphors and
haven for itself in the peace and tranquillity of images in his verses (e.g. “gems of verse,”
the Oriental milieu. The music of Hafiz “darts of eyelashes,” “curled ringlets”). Indeed,
aroused in Goethe’s imagination a mighty in the ardour of his Persianism he does not
storm, which took a permanent shape in the refrain even from hinting at pederasty. The
West‐Oestlicher Divan. Von Hammer’s names of the different parts of the Divan are
translation, however, was not merely a Persian, such as ‘Mughanni‐namah,’
stimulus for Goethe; it was also the source of ‘Sakinama,’ ‘Ishq‐namah,’ ‘Timur‐namah,’
his extraordinary ideas. There are passages in ‘Hikmat‐namah’. Notwithstanding all this,
the Divan which read like liberal translations of Goethe is not an imitator of any Persian poet;
Hafiz’s verses. There are also passages‐ in his poetic genius is completely independent.
which his imagination, led on to some new His singing in the tulip‐fields of the East is
path by a line of Hafiz, throws light on purely a temporary phase. He never lets go of
complex and profound problems of life. his Westernism, and his glance rests only on
Goethe’s well‐known biographer, those Oriental truths which his Western
Bielschowsky, writes as follows: temperament can assimilate. He took no
In the songs of the nightingale of Shiraz
interest whatsoever in Persian mysticism.
Goethe perceived his own image. There Although he knew that in the East the verses of
were times when he experienced the Hafiz were interpreted in mystical terms, he
hallucinatory feeling that his spirit had, himself was dedicated only to the ghazal pure
in an earlier existence, perhaps and simple and had no sympathy with the
inhabited the East in the body of Hafiz. mystical interpretation of Hafiz. Rumi’s
There is in him the same earthly joy, the philosophical verities and sapiential utterances
same heavenly love, the same appeared to him to be merely vague. It,
simplicity, the same depth, the same
however, seems that he did not study Rumi
warmth and fervour, the same
catholicity, the same open‐heartedness,
carefully; for it is impossible that a man who
the same freedom from restrictions and was an admirer of Spinoza (the Dutch
conventions; in short, in everything we philosopher who believed in the unity of
find him a second Hafiz. Hafiz was a being) and who wrote in support of Bruno
mouthpiece of the hidden and an (Italy’s existential philosopher) should not
interpreter of mysteries, and so is have acknowledged Rumi, if he had known
Goethe. Just as there is a world of him well enough.
meaning in the apparently simple words To sum up, Goethe tried through the West‐
of Hafiz, hidden truths manifest
Oestlicher Divan to instill the Persian spirit into
themselves in Goethe’s unstrained
utterances. Both elicited admiration
German literature. Later poets, such as Platen,
from rich and poor alike. Both Rueckert and Bodenstedt, completed the
influenced with their personalities great Oriental movement initiated by the Divan.
conquerors of their times (viz. Timur in Platen learned Persian for his literary
the case of Hafiz, and Napoleon in that purposes. He composed ghazals and ruba’iyat in
of Goethe,) and preserving their internal which he observed rhymes and rhyme‐
peace and composure, in times of adjuncts and even the rules of Persian prosody.
general destruction and ravage, He even wrote a qasidah on Napoleon. Like
succeeded in going on with their
Goethe, he freely uses Persian metaphors, such
singing.
as “the rose‐bride,” “the musky ringlet” and

A Message from the East 65
“tulip‐faced,” and he is devoted to the ghazal the imitator of Hafiz, Hermann Stahl,
pure and simple. Rueckert was well versed in Loeschke, Stieglitz, Lenthold and Von Shack.
Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. He thought The last‐mentioned enjoyed a high position in
highly of Rumi’s philosophy and wrote most the world of learning. Two of his poems, ‘The
of his ghazals in imitation of Rumi. Since he Justice of Mahmüd Ghaznavi’ and ‘The Story
was a scholar of Oriental languages, the of Harut and Marut,’ are well known and his
sources of his Oriental poems were also more poetry, on the whole, bears the impress of
diversified. He gathered gems of wisdom from ‘Umar Khayyam’s influence. However, a
wherever he could lay hands on them, as, for complete history of the Oriental movement
example, from Nizami’s Makhzan al‐Asrar, and a detailed comparison of German and
Jami’s Baharistan, Amir Khusrau’s Kulliyat, Persian poets designed to assess the exact
Sa‘di’s Gulistan, and from Manaqib al‐‘Arifin, extent of Persian influence call for an extensive
‘Ayar Danish, Mantiq al‐Tair and Haft Qulzum. study, for which I have at my disposal neither
In fact, he embellishes his writings even with the time nor the means. It may be that the brief
pre‐Islamic traditions and stories of Persia. He sketch given here will enthuse someone
has also beautifully narrated some events of younger than I am to undertake the necessary
Islamic history, such as the death of Mahmüd research.
Ghaznavi, Mahmüd’s assault on Somnat, the I need not say much about A Message from
deeds of Sultanah Radiyah. The most popular the East, which has been written a hundred‐
poet of the Oriental movement after Goethe is odd years after the West‐Oestlicher Divan. My
Bodenstedt, who published his poems under readers will by themselves appreciate that the
the pseudonym of Mirza Shafi‘. It was a small main purpose underlying it is to bring out
collection which became so popular that it moral, religious and social truths bearing on
went through 140 editions within a short the inner development of individuals and
period. So perfectly did Bodenstedt assimilate nations. There is undoubtedly some
the Persian spirit that for long people in resemblance between Germany as it was a
Germany took his poems to be translations of hundred years ago and today’s East. The truth,
Persian poems. He profited from Amir Mu‘izzi however, is that the internal unrest of the
and Anvari as well. world’s nations, which we cannot assess
I have deliberately refrained from properly because of being ourselves affected
mentioning Goethe’s famous contemporary, by it, is the fore‐runner of a great spiritual and
Heine, in this connection. Although his cultural revolution. Europe’s Great War was a
collection of poems entitled New Poems bears catastrophe which destroyed the old world
marked traces of Persian influence and he has order in almost every respect, and now out of
very skillfully narrated the story of Mahmud the ashes of civilization and culture Nature is
and Firdausi, yet, on the whole, he has no building up in the depths of life a new Adam
connection with the Oriental movement. In and a new world for him to live in, of which
fact, he did not accord much value to German we get a faint sketch in the writings of Einstein
poetry of the Oriental movement outside and Bergson. Europe has seen with its own
Goethe’s Divan. However, even the heart of eyes the horrible consequences of its
this independent‐minded German poet could intellectual, moral and economic objectives and
not escape the magic charm of Persia. has also heard from Signor Nitti (a former
Imagining himself to be a Persian poet exiled prime minister of Italy) the heart‐rending story
to Germany, he writes: “O Firdausi, O Jami, O of the West’s decline. It is, however, a pity that
Sa’di, your brother, confined in a dismal Europe’s perspicacious, but conservative,
prison, pines for the roses of Shiraz.” statesmen have failed to make a proper
Also deserving mention among minor assessment of that wonderful revolution which
poets of the Oriental movement are Daumer, is now taking place in the human mind.

Regarded from a purely literary standpoint, trouble of doing this, the publication of this

the debilitation of the forces of life in Europe collection would have been delayed very
after the ordeal of the war is unfavourable to much.
the development of a correct and mature
IQBAL
literary ideal. Indeed, the fear is that the minds
of the nations may be gripped by that slow‐ [Translated by M. Hadi Husain]
pulsed ‘Ajamiyat which runs away from life’s
difficulties and which fails to distinguish DEDICATORY EPISTLE
between the emotions of the heart and the
thoughts of the brain. However, America
TO KING AMANULLAH KHAN
seems to be a healthy element in Western OF AFGHANISTAN
civilization, the reason for which perhaps is
Successful head of a great monarchy,
that it is free from the trammels of old
Youthful in years, old in sagacity,
traditions and that its collective intuition is
Inspired practitioner of the royal art,
receptive to new ideas and influences.
Possessor of the wisdom of the heart,
The East, and especially the Muslim East,
With a will as strong as your mountain walls,
has opened its eyes after a centuries‐long
And constant circumspection that forestalls
slumber. But the nations of the East should
All risks, ambition as high as my thought,
realise that life can bring about no revolution
And organising power that has brought
in its surroundings until a revolution takes
Together feuding tribes, you have untold
place in its inner depths and that no new world
Gifts made to you by kings—silver and gold,
can take shape externally until it is formed in
Rubies and jewels. O king, son of a king,
the minds of men. This ineluctable law, which
Accept from me this humble offering.
has been stated by the Quran in the simple but
eloquent words, “Verily, God does not change Ever since I found out life’s mystery,
a nation until it changes itself” [xiii. 11] It is as if a fire blazed inside me.
governs both the individual and the collective My song is a flame of that inner fire—
spheres of life; and it is the truth of this law A song of passion sung on wisdom’s lyre.
that I have tried to keep in view in my Persian That Western sage, that bard of Germany,
works. That ardent lover of things Pahlavi,
In the present‐day world, and especially in Saluted the East with his great Divan,
Eastern countries, every effort which aims at That tribute to the poets of Iran
extending the outlook of individuals and And veritable picture gallery
nations beyond geographical boundaries and Of vignettes, all in Persian imagery.
at reviving or generating in them a healthy and To that salute this book is a reply,
strong human character is worthy of respect. It This gleam of moonlight in the Eastern sky.
is for this reason that I have dedicated these Without deluding myself, I will dare
few pages to His Majesty the King of To tell you how the two of us compare.
Afghanistan, who appears to be well aware of His was the vital spark of the young West;
this fact, thanks to his natural intelligence and Mine has been wrung from the East’s aged
keen intellect, and who is specially keeping in breast.
view the education and training of the A flourishing spring garden gave him birth;
Afghans. May God help him in the fulfilment I am a product of a long dead earth.
of this grand mission. He was a nightingale that filled with song
In the end, I must thank my friend, An orchard; I am but a desert gong,
Chaudhry Muhammad Hussain, M. A., who A signal for the caravan to start.
arranged for publication the manuscripts of the We both have delved into the inmost heart
poems presented here. Had he not taken the Of being; both of us are messages

Of life in the midst of death’s ravages; Of East and West, both covered with his
Two daggers, morning‐lustred, mirror‐bright; blood;
He naked; I still sheathed, concealed from No one left like that ardent soul, Salman;
sight. His creed of Love now alien to Iran,
Two pearls, both precious, both unmatched, Which has lost all its fervour, all its zest,
are we, The old fire all cold ashes in its breast;
Both from the depths of an unfathomed sea. The Indian Muslim unconcerned about
He burst out of the mother‐of‐pearl’s womb, All save his belly, sunk in listless doubt.
For he could rest no longer in that tomb. The heroes have departed from the scene:
But I, who still am lying shell‐enshrined, All, all gone—Khalid, Umar, Saladin.
Have yet to be astir in the sea’s mind.
God has endowed you with a feeling heart,
No one around me knows me properly:
That bleeds to see the Muslims thus
They go away with empty cups from my
distraught.
Wine‐fount. I offer them a royal state,
Across this wilderness pass like a breeze
With Chosroe’s throne for use as their
Of spring; blow back Siddiq’s and Umar’s
footmat.
days.
But they want fairy tales of love from me,
This race of mountain‐dwellers, the Afghans,
The gaudy trappings of mere poesy.
The blood of lions flowing in their veins,
They are so purblind that they only see
Industrious, brave, intelligent and wise,
My outside, not the fervid soul in me.
With the look of the eagle in their eyes,
I have made Love my very being’s law:
Have not, alas, fulfilled their destiny:
In me can live together fire and straw
Their star has not yet risen in the sky.
The truths of statecraft and religion both
They dwell hemmed in by mountain
God has revealed to me; so I am loth
fastnesses,
To turn to any other guide. From my
Shut off from all renascent influences.
Imagination do the flowers come by
O you, for whom no labour is too great,
Their hues. Each line of verse that I compose
Spare no endeavour to ameliorate
Is a drop of my rich heart’s blood that flows
Your people, so that you may add your name
From my pen’s point. Do not think poetry
To those of men who worked for Islam’s
Is merely madness; if this madness be
fame.
Complete, then wisdom is its name. Alas!
Vouchsafed this gift, I am condemned to pass Life is a struggle, not beseeching rights;
My days in exile in this joyless land, And knowledge is the arms with which one
This India, where none can understand fights.
The things I sing of like a nightingale God ranked it with the good things that
With not a tulip, not a rose to hail abound
Its song—a nightingale singing alone And said it must be grasped, wherever found.
In some deserted place, sad and forlorn. The one to whom the Quran was revealed,
So mean is fortune that it favours fools. From whom no aspect of truth was concealed,
Woe to the gifted, who defy its rules! Beheld the Essence itself with his eye;
And yet “God, teach me still more” was his
You see, O king, the Muslims’ sun dimmed by
cry.
The darkling clouds that overhang the sky—
Knowledge of things is Adam’s gift from God,
The Arab in his desert gone astray;
The shining palm of Moses and his rod,
The way of godliness no more his way;
The secret of the greatness of the West,
The Egyptian in the whirlpool of the Nile;
The source of all that it has of the best.
And the Turanian slow‐pulsed and senile;
We would see, if our spirits had true zest,
The Turk a victim of the ancient feud
Nothing but diamonds in the roadside dust.

Knowledge and wealth make nations sound Armed with love of Muhammad, one
and strong, commands
And thus enable them to get along. Complete dominion over seas and lands.
For knowledge cultivate your people’s minds; Ask God to grant you some small part
For wealth exploit your mineral finds. Of that love for Muhammad which the heart
Go, plunge a dagger into your land’s bowels; Of Siddiq and of Ali bore, because
Like Somnat’s idol it is full of jewels. The life of the Islamic people draws
In it do rubies of Badakhshan lie; Its sustenance from it and it, in fact,
In its hills is the thunder of Sinai. Is that which keeps the universe intact.
It was Muhammad whose epiphany
If you desire a firmly founded state,
Laid bare the essence of Reality.
Then make of men a proper estimate.
My soul has no peace but in love of him—
Many an Adam acts like an Iblis;
A light in me that never can get dim.
Many an Iblis acts like an Idris,
Arise and make the cup of Love go round,
With false pretences that cheat simple folk,
And in your hills make songs of Love
His tulip‐heart a lamp that is all smoke;
resound.
Deceitful, with a show of piety,
His heart full of hate and hypocrisy. [Translated by M. Hadi Husain]
O king, be careful in assessing them,
Not every stone that glitters is a gem. THE TULIP OF SINAI
The sage of Rum, of blessed memory,
Has thus summed up why nations live or die: 1
“The end of no past nation has been good
All being is a martyr to His whim,
Which could not tell a stone from aloe‐wood.”
All life is graven with the need of Him:
A king in Islam is God’s servitor— Seest thou not the Sun, that flames the Sky
A selfless Ali or a just Umar. Has left the scar of Worship on Dawn’s rim?
Among your multifarious tasks of state
2
Give yourself time to think and contemplate.
The ambusher of self can never lose My heart is bright with burning inwardly,
A quarry: quarries fall into his noose. Mine eye weeps blood, yet all the world does
In royal robes live like an anchorite: see;
Eyes wide awake, but thought of God hugged Let him still less Life’s mystery attain
tight. Who says that Love is but insanity!
That soldier‐king, the Emperor Murad,
Whose lightning‐spouting sword kept his foes 3
awed, Love gives the garden the soft breeze of May,
An Ardeshir with an Abu Dharr’s soul, Love lights the star‐buds in the meadow gay,
Played both a king’s role and a hermit’s role. The ray of passion plunges through the deep,
His breast wore armour for his soldier’s part, Love gives the fishes sight to see the way.
But in it dwelt a hairshirt‐wearer’s heart.
All Muslim rulers who were truly great 4
Led hermits’ lives despite their royal state. Love reckoneth the price of eagles cheap,
Asceticism was their way of life; And giveth pheasants to the falcons’ grip;
To cultivate it was their constant strife. Our hearts look carefully to their defence,
They lived as Salman lived in Ctesiphon. But suddenly, out of ambush, Love doth leap.
A ruler he who did not care to don
The robes of royalty and who abhorred
All outfit save the Qur’an and the sword.

5 God created the world, but Adam made it
better—
’Tis Love that paints the tulip petals’ hue, Adam, perhaps, is God’s co‐worker.
’Tis Love that stirs the spirit’s bitter rue;
If thou couldst cleave this carrion of clay, 12
Thou shalt behold, within, Love’s bloodshed
I do not seek the beginning or the end;
too.
I am full of mystery and seek the realm of
6 mysteries.
Even if the face of truth were unveiled,
Not every soul of Love hath capital, I would still seek the same ‘perhaps’ and
Not every spirit respondeth to Love’s call; ‘maybe’.
The tulip flowereth with a branded breast,
The ruby’s heart hath not a spark at all. 13
7 How long, my heart, will you be as foolish as
the moth?
A spent scent in the garden I suspire, How long will you be unlike a man’s heart?
I know not what I seek, what I require, just for once let your own fire consume you–
But be my passion satisfied, or no, How long will you fly round the fire of
Yet here I burn, a martyr to desire. others?
8 14
The world is clay; our hearts its harvest be; Build, with your handful of dust,
Yet is this drop of blood its mystery; A body stronger than a rock fortress,
Surely our sight is double, or the world and inside this body let there be a heart that
Of every man is in his heart to see. feels sorrow –
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] Like a stream flowing by a mountain.
9 [Translated by Mustansir Mir]
The nightingale said to the gardener at dawn: 15
‘Only the tree of sorrow can take root in this Of water and of clay a figure fine
soil: God wrought, a world than Eden more
The wild thorn reaches a ripe age, divine,
But the rose dies when it is still young’. And still the saki fashioned with his flame
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] Another world out of this dust of mine.
10 [Translated by A.J. Arberry]
This world of ours, where Loss is born with 16
Gain, On the Day of Resurrection the Brahmin said
And Dissolution is with Being twain, to God:
Our heart will not endure it, soon or late: ‘The light of life was like a brilliant spark;
Make new the old, and build it up again ! But, if you don’t mind, I will say this to you:
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] The idol lasted longer than man’.
To the voice of love Adam is music;
He reveals secrets, but he is a secret himself

17 24
Swift‐paced thou hast departed, star of dawn! Thou reachest to the bosom of a star:
Perchance disgusted that we slumbered on: Yet of thyself thou art all unaware:
It was through ignorance I lost the way— Grain‐like, upon thyself open an eye,
Wakeful thou earnest, wakeful thou art gone. And thou shalt rise from earth a sapling fair.
18 25
The tavern were exempt of turbulence, How sweet a birdsong on the air was borne
No spark illumed our clay’s indifference; Within the leafy garden, at the dawn
Love had not been, nor all the alarm of Love, Give out whatever in thy heart thou hast—
If heart possessed the mind’s intelligence. Carol or make lament, or sigh, or mourn!
19 26
O new‐fledged spirit proudly hovering! If thou wilt take from me the lesson of life,
God made thee all delight upon the wing; I’ll tell thee a close‐guarded mystery:
’Tis fleshly passion checks our sluggard flight, Having no soul in body, thou must die;
While thou ecstatic unto Heaven dost spring. Thou shalt not die, be there a soul in thee.
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] 27
20 O hush your fable of the candle‐sprite,
The tale of its burning grates upon the ear:
What joy comes with existence, dear Lord!
That moth alone I recognize as such
The heart of every atom yearns for life:
That labours fiercely and blazes with good
As the rose‐bud cracks open the branch,
cheer.
It smiles with the love of life!
28
21
The draught that makes thee stranger to
I have heard that in pre‐existence the moth
thyself,
said:
Of that delightful juice I have no part;
‘Grant me just a moment’s radiance in my life.
Then seek no other goods in my bazaar,
You may scatter my ashes at dawn,
For, like the rose, I have a bleeding heart.
But grant me one night of passion and fire’.
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] 29
Walk in my garden, and thou’lt find but loss,
22
Except thy soul be martyred to the Quest;
Muslims ! I have a word within my heart I shew what flows within the rose’s veins,
More radiant than the soul of Gabriel: No magic scents and hues my Spring
I keep it hidden from the Sons of Fire, possessed.
It is a secret Abraham knew well.
30
23
Forth from this world of how and wherefore
O heart, my heart, unto His street thou’rt flee,
gone! This maelstrom of our be and not‐to‐be!
O heart, my heart, thou leavest me alone; Let selfhood be the tenant of thy flesh,
Each instant thou createst new desires: And build, like Abraham, a sanctuary.
O heart, hast thou naught other to be done?
[Translated by A.J. Arberry]

31 37
I do not know the birds in the garden, Whene’er the joy of music brings me forth
On the branch where my nest is built I sing The vast assembly rages with my fire,
alone. But when I would a little be alone
If you are weak of heart, stay away from me, Within my heart I lose the world entire.
For my song drips blood.
38
[Translated by Mustansir Mir]
Enquirest thou, what is this heart of thine?
32 The heart was born, when fire consumed the
brain:
Dear Lord, what sweet commotion fills the
The joy of agitation formed the heart,
world!
And when this ceased, it turned to clay again.
Thou hast made all drunken—with a single
bowl; 39
Thou gavest glance communion with glance,
But partest heart from heart, and soul from “The eye cannot attain Him,” said the mind:
soul. Yet Yearning’s glance trembles in hope arid
fear.
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] It grows not old, the tale of Sinai,
And every heart yet whispers Moses’ prayer.
33
Alexander gave Khizr some good advice: 40
‘Be part of the commotion of land and sea. Cathedral, temple, mosque, or monastery,
You are watching this battle from the side of Naught hast thou made, this hand of dust
the field; apart:
Go and die in action, and then you will be Only the heart can save from alien rule,
truly immortal. And thou, O fool, thou hast not found a heart.
34 Not in these bowers have I bound my heart,
Dust is the throne of Kay, the crown of Jam, But fare on free from this imprisonment:
Church, temple, dust the Shrine of Abraham; Awhile I tarried, like the breath of dawn,
I do not know what essence is in me— And, gave the roses fragrance as I went.
I gaze beyond the skies, yet dust I am! 42
35 This youthful wine I poured into the cup,
If there were set within thy hand of dust Revives the aged toper near to die,
A heart, a hundred fragments of warm blood, For, like the ancient Magians, this wine
And of spring’s clouds if thou couldst learn to I borrowed from the Saki’s languorous eye.
ween 43
Tulips shall blossom from thy sorrow’s flood.
His wine hath made my sherd the Cup of Jam
36 And hid the Ocean in the drop I am:
Each breath new images are being cast, My intellect had burnt an idol‐house;
Not in one form finds Life stability; Love made of it the Shrine of Abraham.
If thy to‐day reflects thy yesterday,
No vital spark within thy dust can be.

44 Which grasping, after death thou shalt not
die.
The mind is past’s and present’s prisoner
And tends the idols of the eye and ear; 51
It has an image hidden in its sleeve—
Why ask, what links my body and my soul?
The Brahman’s son the girdle too shall wear.
I fall not in the snare of How, How Long:
45 Awhile my breath is choked, but when I rise
In each man’s head an intellect is set: Clear of the reed’s embrace, I am a song.
My flesh, like others’, is of clay and blood;
52
But in this flesh there dwells a spaceless
thought— Thus spake the wise preceptor unto me:
I only have this secret understood. “Thy every day the morrow’s message is:
Preserve thy heart from the unheeding fair—
No footmark tread its sanctuary but His.”
46
53
You went to Sinai, begging to have a view;
Why ask of Razi what the Book denotes?
Your soul is a stranger to itself.
Behold, its best interpreter I am:
Set out in search of man;
Mind lights a flame, heart burns—thus
God Himself is searching for him.
comprehend
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] The tale of Nimrod and of Abraham.
47 54
Speak this my message unto Gabriel: Whether I am, or not, I hold my peace—
“My body was not made with light aglow; To say “I am“ were self‐idolatry:
Yet see the fervour of us sons of earth, Who is the singer, then, and whose the song
This joy‐in‐grief no Child of Light can know !” That cries “I am” within the heart of me?
48 55
Shall knowledge fall the Phoenix in the net? Tell thou for me that poet of bright words:
Be less assured: let doubt imprison thee. Thou tulip flame, what profit does it bring?
Wouldst work? Then let thy faith be more Thou meltest not thyself with such a fire,
mature: No lightest up the night of sorrowing.”
One be thou seeking, One behold, One be!
56
49
I do not know thy Ugly and thy Fair:
Mind wove the veils that cover up Thy face, Thou takest Gain and Loss to measure by.
And ah! mine eyes thirst upon Thee to gaze. I am the loneliest in this company—
Thought with desire is all the while at war— I view the vast world with another eye.
What tumult in the poor heart Thou dost
raise!
57
Perchance, grave minister, thou knowest not
50
Love too shall have its Judgment after death,
Thy heart quivereth at the thought of death. But in that Hall nor Book nor Balance is,
Pale as a lime in terror thou dost lie: Nor sin, nor infidelity, nor faith.
Fear not; take thou a selfhood more mature,

58 64
The water‐drop, when it is self‐illumed, Stranger it was, nor faithfulness did know,
Amidst a hundred as one pearl shall be: Its gaze was restless, searching to and fro:
Then at this feast of choristers so live When it beheld Him, from my breast it flew—
To take their garden for an oratory. I knew not that His hand had taught it so.
59 65
Ye men of learning, I am in a maze, Speak not of Love, and of Love’s wizardry:
The mind this meaning cannot understand: Whatever shape thou wilt, he doth descend:
How in a hand of Dust there beats a heart Within the breast he is a spark, no more,
Wherein gazelles of Fancy rove the land. But on the tongue a tale without an end.
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] 66
60 Sweet newborn bud, why art thou so forlorn?
What seekest thou within this garden fair?
Don’t arrange a party on the shore,
For here is dew, a river, song at morn,
For there the song of life is gentle and soft.
Birds in the grass, red roses, summer air.
Roll with the ocean and contend with its
waves: 67
Struggle and combat give eternal life.
One day a withered rose thus spoke to me:
61 “Our manifesting is a spark swift blown.”
My heart is anguished for the Artist’s pain,
My entire being is a meaning sealed,
The painting of His brush fadeth so soon!
I cannot abide the looks of word‐spinners.
I cannot be called free ‐or pre‐determined ‐ [Translated by A.J. Arberry]
Because I am living clay, and for ever
changing!
68
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] Our infinite world—of old
Time’s ocean swallows it up.
62 Look once in thy heart, and behold
Time’s ocean sunk in a cup.
Speak not about the Purpose of this life:
Thou hast not sight to see its blandishments. [Translated by R.A. Nicholson]
I have such joy in travelling the road,
Except the stony way, no stage I sense.
69
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] My talk is with the songsters of the glade;
The tongue of tongueless rosebuds I was
63 made;
When I am dead, O cast my dust on air—
If you were merely to glance at a piece of
Attending roses is my only trade.
rock,
It would turn into a jewel if you so desired. 70
Slave of gold, don’t measure yourself by
gold– This vale of roses, is it as it seems?
It was your glance that turned it into gold. What makes the tulip’s fiery heart to glow?
A sea of colours is the mead we view:
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] How nightingales behold it, who can know?

71 78
I am a circling planet, Thou my sun, Your plectrum fills the instrument of the soul
The light that bathes me by Thy glance is with tunes.
thrown: How can You be in the soul and outside it as
Far from Thy bosom I imperfect am, well?
Thou art the Book, one chapter I alone. Why should I worry? With You, I am aflame;
without You I die.
72 But my Unique One, how do You manage
Sweet is His image in my sight to stay, without me?
Sweeter His love, my life to steal away; [Translated by Mustansir Mir]
It was a subtle teacher taught me this—
Sweeter than lodging is the winding way. 79
73 The heaved breath is a beaker of His sea,
He lips our reed, and plays our melody;
A girdled infidel, this brain of mine, We grow as grass by an eternal stream,
It worships idols of its own design; His dew is in our vein and artery.
Regard my heart, weeping for Passion’s
grief— 80
What is to thee my way, my Faith divine?
There is one pain that tortureth Thy breast:
74 Thou madest this world of colours and of
scents,
The free‐paced fir His bondslave was before, Why does it pain Thee else my fearless love,
Fire in the rose’s cheek His wine did pour; Who didst create this mighty turbulence?
Sun, moon and stars His sanctuary are,
The heart of Adam, His unopened door. 81
75 Whom seekest thou? What fever fills thy
mind?
A hundred worlds stretched star to farthest ’Tis He is patent—thou the veil behind:
star. Search after Him, and but thyself thou’lt see,
Where’er the mind soared, there the heavens Search after self and naught but Him thou’lt
are find.
But when I looked within upon my self,
I saw a margin infinitely far. 82
76 Leave childishness, and learn a better lore;
Abandon race, if thee a Muslim bore;
Set not the chain of Fate upon thy foot; If of his colour, blood, and veins and skin
There is a way beyond this rolling sphere; The Arab boasts—an Arab he no more!
If thou believest not, rise up, and find
Thy foot uplifted leapeth in the air. [Translated by A.J. Arberry]
77 83
My heart to its own spell is prisoner, We are not Afghans, Turks or Tartars:
The world is lightened by its radiance fair; Offspring of the garden, we grew from the
Seek not my dawn and even in a sun same bough.
That ere my rising shone a many year. Distinctions of colour and scent are forbidden
to us,
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] For we are products of a new spring.

[Translated by Mustansir Mir] But guard Love’s sorrow that thy heart hath
won.
84
91
There is a world concealed within my breast,
Heart in my dust, by passion’s grief possest, Come, Love, thou heart’s most secret
And of the Wine that first lit up the soul whispering,
One drop within my pitcher yet doth rest. Come, thou our sowing and our harvesting;
These earthly spirits are too aged grown—
Out of our clay another Adam bring!
85
92
My heart! My heart! My heart!
Speech bringeth pain and grief— so best it
My ocean, my boat, my shore!
were;
Did you fall like dew on my dusty being,
This long lament to me is lovelier;
Or did you sprout like a bud out of my soil?
The joy I have not Alexander knew—
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] Better than Jamshid’s realm a slow, sweet air.
86 93
What maketh Foul and Fair, how shall I say? I have no swift‐paced steed to ride upon,
Tongue trembleth, such a riddle to declare: I am no courtier of a monarch’s son;
Without the stem, thou seest rose and thorn; This, friend, for me is happiness enough
Within, nor rose nor thorn is patent there. That, when I dug my heart—a ruby shone!
87 94
What man in secret is not sorrowful, Wouldst thou the perfect life attain? Then
He hath a body, but he hath no soul: learn
Desirest thou a spirit? Then pursue On self alone to fix the opened eye;
The fire and fever that shall never cool. The world to swallow in a single draught;
To break the spell it is encompassed by.
88
O ask not what I am, or whence came I:
95
’Tis self‐involvement I am living by: “A child of earth is Adam,” thou dost say.
Within this sea I am a restless wave, “Bond to the world of being and decay”;
And when I am no more involved, I die. Yet Nature wrought a miracle indeed—
The seas foundations on his fount to lay !
89
With all Thy glory, Thou the veil dost wear.
The passion of our gaze Thou canst not bear, 96
Thou runnest in our blood like potent wine,
To a fearless heart a lion is a sheep;
But ah! how strange Thou comest, and too
To a timid heart a deer is a tiger.
rare.
If you have no fear, the ocean is a desert;
90 If you are fearful, there is a crocodile in every
wave.
Hug not the rest‐house; on the roadway run:
Keep bright the vision, as the moon and sun; [Translated by Mustansir Mir]
The goods of mind and Faith to others give,

97 If what you can do is unique,
It will deserve a reward even if it is a sin.
Wine am I, or the bowl where it doth lie?
Pearl, or the bosom it is treasured by? [Translated by Mustansir Mir]
I scan my heart, and this is all I see:
104
One thing my soul is, and another I.
The roving heart likes not at borne to stay,
98 To be contained in water, fire, and clay;
Thou sayest, “Lo, our bird is in the snare, Think not that in the body is repose,
No more shall he stretch wings and fly in air”; This rolling sea comes to no shore to play.
Yet grows the soul more salient through the
105
flesh
Our dagger’s whetted by its scabbard there. Why choosest thou to sit alone, apart?
With Nature’s beauty be at dalliance:
99 God gave to thee an eye with vision clear
Declare: how in the heart is born desire, Out of its lustre to create a glance.
How in the dwelling burns the lantern’s fire. [Translated by A.J. Arberry]
Who sees with this our sight, and what he
sees, 106
And how the soul was lodged within our In the midst of water and earth I sat alone,
ware. And turned away from Plato and Farabi.
100 I did not beg anyone else for sight–
I saw the world with my eyes alone.
When I was dead, and walked in Paradise,
This heaven I could clearly see; [Translated by Mustansir Mir]
One doubt yet lingered in my baffled soul— 107
Was it the world, that world of imagery?
The origins of selfhood no man knows,
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] To dawn and eve no fellowship it owes.
101 I heard this wisdom from the heavenly guide:
Not older than its wave the Ocean flows.”
Our world, a piece of work not yet finished,
Is hostage to the alteration of day and night; 108
The file of fate will rub it smooth ‐ Heart, in the rosebud view Life’s mystery!
This clay sculpture is still being made. Truth in contingent there unveiled is shewn;
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] Although it springeth from the shadowed
earth,
102 Its gaze is fixed upon the radiant sun.
Being so distant, heaven‐circling sun, [Translated by A.J. Arberry]
What manner to my vision dost thou come?
Nigh to the earthy, from the earth so far! 109
O vision dazzler, whither dost thou roam? His glory is seen in garden and jungle;
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] The cup of the rose glows with His wine.
There is no one whom He consigns to
103 everlasting darkness
Carve out your path with your own pick‐axe; From His mark a lamp is lit in every heart.
It is a torment to take the path of others. [Translated by Mustansir Mir]

110 117
In the narcissus bed a bud did rise, Survival is, unendingly to burn;
The dew of dawn washed slumber from its Like fishes, we can naught but twist and turn;
eyes. Seek not the shore, for in the shore’s embrace
Self out of selflessness appeared, and so One moment’s twisting ends in death eterne.
What it had sought, the world did realize.
118
111
And if the Brahman, preacher, biddeth us
The world, that findeth in itself no stay, Bow down to idols, furrow not thy brow:
Sought in the street of yearning for a way, Our God Himself who shaped an image fair,
From the embrace of non‐existence fled, Bade Cherubim before an idol bow.
And last in Adam’s heart for refuge lay.
119
112
The philosophers have broken a hundred
Think not I grieve to die: idols,
The riddle of body and soul I have read plain. But they are still in the Somnat of ‘was’ and
What care though one world vanish from ‘is’.
mine eye, How can they ensnare the angels and God? ‐
When hundreds in my consciousness remain? They have not yet tied Adam to their
saddle‐straps!
[Translated by R.A. Nicholson]
113
120
The Rose and I one problem have to tell;
We both are seized by the assembly’s spell; Out of my hand of clay worlds spring like
The petal’s tongue was not made eloquent, grain;
But in his wounded breast a heart doth dwell. Come, from my harvest capital obtain:
Lo, thou hast missed the way unto the Friend;
114 Then lose thyself awhile in my heart’s plain.
The self‐sown tulip’s temper I know well,
121
Within the stem the roses’ scent I smell,
The meadow songster loves me as a friend, A thousand years with Nature I did make
The tone wherein he carols I can tell. Near comradeship, and did myself for sake;
And all my history was summed in this—
115 I fashioned, and I worshipped; and I brake.
One song of yearning fills the world entire,
122
This yearning strings the universal lyre;
Whatever is, and was and is to be, I flew the broad plains of eternity,
I see one moment of all Time’s desire. From chains of clay and water I was free;
My worth is very precious in Thy sight,
116 For in life’s market Thou hast offered me.
My heart is all the yearning of unrest, [Translated by A.J. Arberry]
Tumult and agitation fill my breast;
What discourse, comrade, seekest thou of me?
All I would say, is to my self addressed.

Inside me is such a play of ideas—what does 129
this mean?
Narcissus‐like unseeing do not creep
Outside me are all these mysteries—what
Out of the mead, as scent the rosebud sweep:
does this mean?
God gave to thee a more illumined eye—
Say, you who are wise and have a subtle
Pass not with waking brain, and heart asleep
mind:
The body lies still, but the soul stirs ‐what 130
does this mean?
After my likeness I an image made:
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] I bound on God the fashion that I wore:
Wherefore I cannot out of self depart—
124
Whatever be my guise, self I adore.
I boast, I am a beggar without need;
I shake, I burn, I melt; I play my reed;
131
My melody has set thee all ablaze: Thus spake the new‐sprung blossom to the
Mirrors I make, being Alexander’s breed. dew:
“We meadow children have no piercing eye:
125
In this broad plain, that holds a hundred suns,
If thou well knowest all thy quality, What difference exists ’twixt low and high ?”
Lay down thy dew, and build thereon the sea:
How long this begging at the moon, my
132
heart? Take earth, heaven’s mysteries to understand,
Light up thy dark with thy own radiancy! By finite space let spacelessness be spanned;
Each atom flies toward the Friend’s abode—
126
Then mark the roadway by the shifting sand.
Why sorrowest thou? The heart lives not by
breath,
133
It is not chained to Being and to Death. Thou only art in the Creator’s “Be!”
Fear not to die, O thou of little sight— Thou only art the Sign that none may see:
Though the breath stop, the heart continueth. Then tread more fearlessly the road of life,
The world’s broad plain containeth only thee.
127
Heart, while thou sittest in the breast of me
134
Better my rug, than sovereign dignity: Earth is the dust upon my tavern door,
Wilt thou be in my bosom after death? Heaven one passing of my cup, no more;
Lo, all my hopes and fears are fixed on thee. Long is the story of my passion’s grief.
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] The world is but the prelude of my lore.
128
On my behalf tell the pure‐hearted Sufis–
135
Those seekers after God and possessors of the Alexander is gone, with his sword and
truth: banner,
I would humbly serve that resolute The revenue he collected, and his treasures
self‐worshipper from mines and oceans.
Who sees God in the light of his own khudi.’

You must believe that nations are more 141
lasting than kings:
Don’t you see that Iran survives, but not The soul of Persia kindles at my song,
Jamshid? The caravan moves on, my call is strong;
Like Urfi I will lift a livelier lilt,
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] For heavy is the load, the way sleeps long.
136 142
My breast was torn, and thou hast seized my Out of my restless spirit the flames start,
heart, In the East’s bosom I have stirred a heart,
Yea, with my dearest prize thou didst depart; Its clay is set afire by my lament,
Whom gavest thou my passion’s precious Like lightning to its inmost soul I dart.
store?
What hast thou done with my most cherished 143
smart? I am a wanderer like the breeze of morn,
137 Roselike my heart is into fragments torn,
My glance, which cannot see the evident,
The world of colour and of fragrancy, A martyr to the joy of sight is borne.
Earth, sky, dimension, all are gone from me:
Didst thou desert His tumult, O my heart 144
Or hath He left thee to thy privacy? Cotton to cloth of gold the mind can bring.
138 Stones turn to mirrors, by its polishing:
The poet, with his magical melody,
I do not know the instrument or key, To honeyed potion doth convert Life’s sting.
Yet well I recognize Life’s melody;
So sang I in the brambles, that the rose 145
Asked of the thrush, “What caroller is he ?” I have consumed the fruit of Passion’s tree.
139 And understood Life’s inmost mystery;
Lo, I have brought the message of the
In the great throng so rapturous I did play, Spring—
I struck the spark of Life out of their clay, Beware the Gardener, Lord of archery!
I lit the heart with the mind’s radiance,
And probed the mind against the heart’s 146
assay. My thought plucks flowers that in Eden grew
To shape and fashion fancies rare and new,
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] Then shakes my heart a leaf within my breast,
A petal trembling ’neath the Summer dew.
140
147
’Ajam became young again through my
songs; Persia’s a sea that never comes to shore,
My frenzy raised the price of its wares. Wherein are pearls of diamantine hue,
It was a crowd lost in the wilderness: Yet I’ll not sail my barque upon a sea
The sound of my bell made it a caravan. Within whose waves is never a shark to view.
Say not, the world’s affairs unstable be;
Our every moment veils eternity:

Hold firmly to To‐day: for yet remains Within thy soul a thing is to be seen.
To‐morrow in the mind of Destiny.
156
149
“I am, and God is not,” thou sayest so:
Thou hast escaped the mastery of the West “Water and clay into the boundless go”;
And yet to tomb and dome thou still dost Yet I have not resolved this mystery—
pray: Whether it is mine eye that sees, or no.
Thou art so well inured to servitude.
Thou carv’st a master of the stony way!
157
I have no roasted fowl on which to sup,
150
No mirror‐shining wine is in my cup,
How long Life’s garment parted shred by Upon green grasses grazes my gazelle,
shred? Yet fragrant musk filleth his heartblood up.
How long like ants make in the earth thy bed?
Rise up on wings, and learn the falcon’s way;
Nor search forever in the straw for bread. 158
151 My passion puts fire into the Muslim veins,
And my restive tears drop from his eyes;
Nest amid roses and anemones,
But still he is not aware of the tumult in my
Learn from the thrush his plangent melodies;
soul ‐
If impotence has made thee grey and old,
For he has not seen the world with my eyes.
From the world’s youth a vital portion seize!
152
159
It was the soul the body’s image hewed,
The rose bloomed double, yearning to be Words are too frail, abodelessness to bear.
shewn; Look inwardly, and see this point is clear:
The restless soul a thousand habits hath, The soul has such a seat within the flesh
And turns to flesh, when it is used to one. One cannot say, “It is not here, but there!”
153 160
I heard a voice proclaiming from the grave: Love plays with every heart a different role,
“Beneath the dust life can be lived again, Now as a stone, and now a crystal bowl:
Breath be possessed; but he has no soul, Love robbed thee of thy self and gave thee
Who lives to please the whim of other men.” tears
But brought me ever closer to my soul.
154
161
This band of dust that scattereth into air
Not long endureth; yet do not despair; From clay and water thou art not yet free,
When Nature fashioneth a living form. Thou sayest thou art Afghan, Turkoman:
It need an age, to make perfection there. First I am man, and have no other hue,
Thereafter Indian, Turanian.
155
162
It must be known, this world of scent and
sheen; The love of speech first filled my heart with
They must be plucked, the roses in the dene; blood
Yet do not close thine eyes upon the self, And set aflame the dust upon the road;

But when I oped my lips, to speak of love, In tulips’ hearts again.
Words veiled this secret in a thicker shroud. THE NEW MOON OF EID
163 New moon of Eid,
You cannot manage to evade
At last from subtle reason he has fled;
The eager view
His self‐willed heart knew passion, and it
Of people waiting for a sight of you.
bled;
A thousand glances have
What askest thou of Iqbal in the clouds?
Conspired to weave
Our wise philosopher has lost his head.
A net to catch you in.
[Translated by A.J. Arberry] Open your eyes
To yourself. Do not grieve
REFLECTIONS That you are a bare outline.
Within you lies
THE FIRST ROSE A real full moon.
I do not find a single comrade in the garden [Translated by M. Hadi Husain]
yet:
For springtime is approaching and I am an CONQUEST OF NATURE
early rose. I. THE BIRTH OF ADAM
I look at myself in the mirror of the rivulet,
Creating a companion through this self‐ Love exclaimed, ‘Now one has been born
deluding pose. Who would roll his heart in blood!
The pen that Destiny employed in writing Beauty trembled when she realised
Being’s scroll That one with a penetrating look had been
Inscribed a message on my leaves for born!
everyone to read. Nature was distraught because,
My heart is with the past; my eye is on the From the dust of a world without will,
present’s roll. One had been born who could
A prophet of the future, I proclaim the Make and unmake himself,
future’s creed. And watch over himself.
I sprang up out of dust and I assumed a rose’s From the heavens the news went out
robe; To eternity’s sleeping‐chamber:
But am, in fact, the Pleiades that was lost in Beware, you who are veiled–
the blue globe. One has been born who will tear away all
veils!
A PRAYER Desire, resting in the lap of life
And forgetful of itself,
O You who filled my glass with wine galore
Opened its eyes, and a new world was born.
From Nature’s own winestore,
Life said, ‘Through all my years
See to it that my glass is melted by
I lay in the dust and convulsed,
This fire sent from Your sky.
Until at last a door appeared
O let my spirited lament provide
In this ancient dome
Love with its wealth of pride.
Would that the dust of my Sinai became II. IBLIS’S REFUSAL
An all‐consuming flame.
I am not such a foolish angel
When I die, let my ashes form a bed
That I would bow to Adam!
Where tulips will be bred,
He is made of dust, but my element is fire.
So that my Passion’s wounds, revived, may
It is my ardour that heats the blood
shine

In the veins of the universe: Come, rise up, so that I may show you a new
I am in the raging storm kingdom!
And the crashing thunder; Open your eyes and go about
I am the bond that holds the atoms together, Seeing the sights the world has to offer.
And the law that rules the elements; Now you are a drop of water worth nothing,
I burn and give form— Become a luminous pearl!
I am the alchemist’s fire. Come down from the heavens,
What I have myself made I break in pieces, And live in the ocean.
Only to create new forms from the old dust. You are a flashing sword,
From my sea rises the wave Strike terror into the world’s soul;
Of the heavens that know no rest— Come out of the scabbard and show your
The splendour and glory of my element mettle.
Fashions the world. Spread an eagle’s wings
The stars owe their existence to You, And spill the pheasants’ blood.
But they owe their motion to me: For a falcon, living in the nest spells death.
I am the soul of the world, You do not yet know this,
The hidden life that is seen by none. But with union comes the end of longing:
You give the soul to the body, What is eternal life?
But I set that soul astir. To burn‐and keep on burning!
You rob on the highway by causing sloth,
IV. ADAM SPEAKS ON COMING OUT OF
I guide along the right path with burning
PARADISE
passion.
I did not beg paupers to bow down before How good it is
me: To fill life with passion and longing;
I am mighty, but do not need a hell; In one breath to melt the heart
I am a judge, but do not need resurrection. Of desert, mountain and wild;
Adam—that creature of dust, To open the door of the cage
That short‐sighted ignoramus— On to a spacious garden;
Was born in your lap To take the path to the heavens,
But will grow old in my arms! And speak with the stars in confidence;
To cast‐at times with secret longing,
III. THE SEDUCTION OF ADAM
But with a show of humility at times –
A life of passion and longing A knowing glance at the sanctum of His
Is better than eternal quiet, Glory;
Even a dove that is caught in a trap, At times to see
But keeps flapping its wings, Nothing but The One in throngs of tulips,
Changes into an eagle. But at times to tell
You do no more than bow down in humility; The prickly thorn apart from the rose!
Rise like the tall cypress tree, you who are My whole being is a flame that burns for ever,
slow to act! And is full of the pain of desire.
The waters of Kawthar and Tasnim I would exchange certainty for doubt—
Have robbed you of the joy of action. For I am dying to know and discover.
Take wine from the jug,
V. THE MORN OF RESURRECTION
Real wine clear as crystal, made from grapes.
‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are figments Adam in the presence of God
Of the imagination of your Lord. You, whose sun gives the star of life its
Take pleasure in action, splendour,
Step out and take what you desire. With my heart you lit

The candle of the sightless world! THE SONG OF TIME
My skills have poured an ocean into a strait,
My pickaxe makes milk flow from the heart of Sun and stars in my bosom I hold;
stone. By me, who am nothing, thou art ensouled.
Venus is my captive, the moon worships me; In light and in darkness, in city and wold,
My reason, which does great deeds, I am pain, I am balm, I am life manifold.
Subdues and controls the universe. Destroyer and Quickener from of old.
1 have gone down into the earth, Genghis, Taimur—specks of my dust they
And been up into the heavens, came,
Both the atom and the radiant sun And Europe’s turmoil is a spark of flame.
Are under the spell of my magic. Man and his world I fashion and frame,
Although his sorcery deluded me, Blood of his heart my spring flowers claim.
Excuse my fault, forgive my sin: Hell fire and Paradise I, be it told.
If his sorcery had not taken me in,
I rest still, I move—wondrous sight for thine
The world could not have been subdued.
eyes!
Without the halter of humility,
In the glass of To‐day see To‐morrow arise,
Pride could not be taken prisoner.
See a thousand fair worlds where my thought
To melt this stone statues with my hot sighs,
deep lies,
I had to don his zunnar.
See a thousand swift stars, a thousand blue
Reason catches artful nature in a net
skies!
And thus Ahriman, born of fire,
Man’s garment am I, God I enfold;
Bows down before the creature of dust!
Fate is my spell, freewill is thy chant.
THE PERFUME OF THE FLOWER O lover of Layla, thy frenzy I haunt;
In a bower of heaven’s garden, As the spirit pure, I transcend thy vaunt.
A houri became anxious and said: Thou and I are each other’s innermost want;
‘No one ever told us‐ about‐ the region Thou showest me forth, hid’st me too in thy
On that side of the heavens. mould.
I do not understand Thou my journey’s end, thou my harvest‐
About day and night., morning, and evening, grain,
And I am at my wits’ end The Assembly’s flow and the music’s strain.
When they talk about birth and death. O wanderer, home to thy heart again!
She became a waft of perfume Behold in a cup the shoreless main!
And emerged from a flower‐branch; From thy lofty wave my ocean rolled.
Thus she set foot
In the world of yesterday and tomorrow. [Translated by R.A. Nicholson]
She opened her eyes,
SPRING
Became a bud, and for a time smiled;
She turned into a flower, Arise, for in plain, hill and dale, spring clouds
Which soon withered and crumbled to the have pitched their tent.
ground. The nightingale sings jubilant
The memory of that lovely maiden- Songs to a choir’s accompaniment.
Her feet unshackled- Along the stream bank’s whole extent
Is kept alive Blend tulip’s tint and rose’s scent.
By that sigh of hers which is called perfume. Let your eye witness this event.
Arise, for in plain, hill and dale spring clouds
have pitched their tent.

Arise, for to the fields has come the flowers’ ETERNAL LIFE
caravan.
The breezes of spring blow again. Do not imagine that the work of the Wine‐
The birds sing songs in unison. maker is complete.
The spring‐mad tulip’s dress is torn. With unknown quantities of undrunk wine
There is a new rose to adorn the vine is still replete.
Beauty, and for love a new thorn. The garden is a happy place, but you cannot
Arise, for to the fields has come the flowers’ survive as buds
caravan. In it for long; the breeze will come and tear
your being’s robe to shreds.
The nightingales are carolling, the ring‐doves If you possess the faintest knowledge of life’s
coo aloud awesome mystery,
All warmed up is the garden’s blood. Then do not seek a heart entirely free from
O’ you, in silence closeted, longing’s agony.
Break all commands of your sane head; Be like a mountain, grave and lofty, with your
Get drunk with mystic wine instead; native dignity,
Sing and go in rose‐petals clad And not like straw. Beware, there is a wildfire
The nightingales are caroling, the ring‐dove raging savagely.
coo aloud
REFLECTIONS OF THE STARS
Abandon your retreat and into fields and
pastures go. I hear a star said to another star:
Sit by a brooklet’s margin so “We are adrift on a sea with no shore.
That you may watch its waters flow. We were created with a wander‐lust:
Spring’s favourite, the narcissus, how Our caravan will not stop any more.
The pride of beauty makes it glow. “If we still are what we were long ago,
O plant a soft kiss on its brow, Then what use is this shining on and on?
Abandon your retreat and into fields and We are all of us captives in Time’s net.
pastures go. Lucky are they who have not yet been born.
O you, who cannot see the obvious, open “No one can bear this heavy load for long.
your mind’s eye. Far better were it never to have been.
See tulips row on row, and see I do not like this azure space at all;
Their bodies on fire seemingly, That nether world presents a fairer scene.
But their hearts inwardly soothed by
The dawn‐dew’s tearful ministry— “How happy is man with his restless soul,
Stars in a twilight‐reddened sky. So gaily riding on the steed of Time.
O you, who cannot see the obvious, open Life is a garment tailor‐made for him,
your mind’s eye. Because he is a maker of new things.”
Sprouts from the garden’s soil, the secret of LIFE
Creation’s heart Sad moaned the cloud of Spring,
The shadow‐play of attribute; “This life’s a long weeping.”
How essence brings itself to light; Cried the lightning, flashing and leaping,
Life, as we all imagine it; “’Tis a laugh on the wing.”
And death, which is life’s opposite; I do not know who took it to the garden,
O all this is without a root. But the rose and the dew are now discussing it.
Sprouts from the garden’s soil the secret of
Creation’s heart.

[Translated by R.A. Nicholson]1 And our long pathway’s limitless curve
The gage of our immortality—
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE The heavens revolve at our desire; we watch
AND LOVE and journey on.
KNOWLEDGE This mansion of the sense, hall
My eyes have witnessed Of idols shaped by mortal seeing,
The secrets of the seven and the four, Mêlée of being and not‐being,
And with my lasso I have captured the Storm and surge of creation, all
world. This realm of the hours swift‐winged or slow,
I am an eye, and when I was opened I we watch and journey on.
turned this way—
Why should I bother about the other side of Battlefields that war’s flames have
the heavens? seared,
A hundred songs flow from my instrument; Those lunacies of subtle wits,
I bring to market every secret I know. Thrones, diadems, and scaffolds reared
For sovereigns on whom Fortune spits,
LOVE All playthings of the ribald times, we watch
Because of the spell you have cast the sea is and journey on.
in flames,
The air spews fire and is filled with poison. The master from his seat deposed,
When you and I were friends, you were a The thrall set loose from slavery,
light; The book of Tsar and Kaiser closed,
But you broke with me, and your light Fierce Alexander’s day gone by,
became a fire. Image and image‐maker fled, we watch and
You were born in the innermost sanctum of journey on.
the Divinity,
But then fell into Satan’s trap. Man’s dust so still, so turbulent,
Come—turn this earthly world into a Dwarfish of stature, giant in toil,
garden, Now loud in roistering, merriment,
And make the old world young again. Now carried shoulder‐high, death’s
Come ‐take just a little of my heart’s spoil,
solicitude, Lord of the world and branded slave, we
And build, under the heavens, an watch and journey on.
everlasting paradise.
We have been on intimate terms since the Like a gazelle the snare has caught,
day of creation, Quivering in misery and pain,
And are the high and low notes of the same You pant in the tangled web of
song. thought,
Your mind plunges and gropes in vain;
From our high citadel of the skies we watch
SONG OF THE STARS and journey on.
Our nature is all the law we serve, What is the curtain called the
From all but its own rapture free, Apparent?
Whence do our light and darkness
flow,
1 The last two lines are provided by the Editors Or eye and heart and reason grow?
since Nicholson didn’t translate them.

What is this nature, restless, errant, What a lowly, fearful lot they are ‐
This universe of Far and Near?—we watch They wipe their beaks clean with dusts!
and journey on. A falcon that copies the ways of his prey
Becomes prey himself.
Your vast to us is little room, Many a predator, descending to earth,
Your year our moment. You who hold Has perished on associating with grain‐eaters.
An ocean in your breast, yet whom Guard yourself and live the life
One dewdrop flatters!—onward rolled Of one of good cheer, brave, robust and
In search of worlds and other worlds, we rugged.
watch and journey on. Let the quail have his soft and delicate body;
[Translated by V.G. Kiernan] Grow a vein hard as a deer’s horn.
All the joy in the world
THE MORNING BREEZE Comes from hardship, toil, and fullness of
breath.
Tripping over mountain‐tops and skipping
What fine advice it was that the eagle gave its
over seas,
son:
I come no one knows from where,
A single drop of blood is better than the
And bring tidings of spring’s coming,
purest wine!
As it were,
Do not seek out company like the deer or
To the autumn‐weary birds,
sheep,
Lining their nests with the silver
But go into seclusion as your ancestors did.
Of white lilies.
I remember the old falcons’ advice:
I roll on the grass and frolic
‘Do not make your nest on the branch of a
With the tulip‐branches,
tree.’
Coaxing smells and colours—flowers—out of
We do not make nests in a garden or a field—
them.
We have our own paradise in mountains and
Gently do I stroke the petals
deserts.
Of the tulip and the rose,
We regard picking up grain from the ground
Lest their stems should bend under my
as an error,
weight.
For God has given us the vastness of the skies.
When a poet breaks into song
If a bird of noble stock scrapes his feet on the
With the frenzy of love’s sorrow,
ground,
With his breath I join my own.
He becomes more despicable than a house
[Translated by M. Hadi Husain] bird.
The kingly falcon uses rocks like a carpet
THE FALCON’S ADVICE TO ITS
Walking on them sharpens his claws.
YOUNGSTER You are one of the yellow‐eyed of the desert,
You know that in essence all falcons are one— And, like the simurgh, are of noble nature;
A mere handful of feathers, but with the heart You are that noble youth who, on the day of
of a lion. battle,
Conduct yourself well and let your strategy Plucks out the pupil of the tiger’s eye.
be well considered; You fly with the majesty of angels,
Be daring, maintain your dignity, and hunt And in your veins is the blood of the kafuri
big game. falcon.
Do not mix with partridges, pheasants, and Under this humpbacked, revolving sky
starlings- Eat what you catch, whether it is soft or hard–
Unless you want them as prey. Do not take food from the hand of another;
Be good and take advice from the good.

[Translated by Mustansir Mir] THE TULIP
THE BOOKWORM AND THE MOTH I am the flame
which on
I hear that in my library one night
Creation’s dawn
A bookworm spoke thus to a moth:
was kindled in love’s heart
“I have long lodged in Sina’s tomes
before the nightingale and the moth came
And have consumed much of Farabi’s
to play their sacrificial part.
manuscript.
But I have not learned anything I am far bigger than the sun,
About life’s mystery, and pour
And am just as much in the dark into each atom’s core
About it as before.” a potion of my light:
The half‐burnt moth gave it a fine reply: I lend my spark to everyone,
“You will not find life’s mystery and it was I who made the heavens so bright.
Explained in books.
Residing like its life‐breath in
However, here it is:
the garden’s breast,
What gives to life intensity
in pristine rest,
Is ardency.
I was drawn up into its bosom by
It lends life wings
a tree‐stem, delicate and thin,
With which to fly.”
as sap that rises up towards the sky.
VANITY It quenched my inner fire
Said snow in cold superior syllables to the And, wanting to beguile
mountain stream: me, it said, “Stay awhile,
“O babbler, I am weary of your meaningless and don’t go out into the day”;
uproar. but my heart’s long‐repressed desire
You talk so impudently and you walk so could brook no more delay.
saucily, I writhed and writhed within the tree,
And ever bolder are your gait and glances encaged,
than before. enraged,
You are not fit to be a member of our family; until the essence of my being found its way
So never claim to be a creature whom the to summits of the ecstasy
mountain bore. of self‐display.
You roam and roll and tumble like an urchin
in the dust. With its pearls of the purest water dew
Go to the felds and plains and let us hear of bestrewed my way,
you no more.” as if to say,
The stream replied, “O do not speak such “O what a glorious birth!”
hurtful words to me. The morning laughed its brightest hue:
Do not be so proud and, what is more, do not the breezes blew in hymeneal mirth.
be a boor. The nightingale heard from the rose
I go because the mountain household is too that I had thrown
high for me; away my own
But you be careful lest the sun should melt primordial consuming flame.
you to the core.” It said, because this crowned its woes,
“He paid a heavy price to thrive. For shame!”

I now stand by, A moon‐faced starlet, living in its isolated
my breast rent open to bower,
the sun’s effulgence so Came out of it in order to look closer at the
that it may set ablaze lower
again the fire of my Planet than from its high tower.
prenatal days.
A gently beaming moonlet told itself that it
PHILOSOPHY AND POETRY would owe
Bu Ali got lost
Its light no longer to the bounty of the sun,
In the dust and so
Kicked up by Wherever it likes it can go.
Layla’s dromedary. O glow‐worm, your whole body is made of
Rumi’s hand the stuff of light.
Seized the curtain A sequence of its intermittent flashes is your
Of her litter. flight—
This one dived Thus flit things in and out of sight.
Deeper, deeper still,
Till he came You are a torch for birds that in the evening
Upon the pearl fly to rest;
He was after. But what and whence this restless passion
But the other burning in your breast,
Got caught in Which keeps you in unceasing quest?
A whirlpool like a piece of straw. Like you we entered into this world by earth’s
If the truth dusty door.
Has no fervour, We saw and tossed about; we did not see, and
It is plain philosophy. tossed about the more.
If it has the proper fervour, O never did we reach the shore.
It is poetry.
I speak from ripe experience and true is what
THE GLOW‐WORM I say,
Don’t think of lost horizons and be steadfast
A tiny atom found itself a living thing by
on your way:
chance.
Keep shining like this while you may.
Aquiver with life’s ardour it began a moth‐
like dance, REALITY
And set aglow the night’s expanse.
The eagle, who sees far, said to the swan,
A dormant sunbeam reawoke and shot up “My eyes see nothing but a bright mirage.”
with a dash. That truthful bird replied, “You see, and I
The alchemy of life converted it to gold from Know that you see, a watery expanse.”
trash From the sea’s depth arose a fish’s cry,
Came vision to it in a flash. “There is something in an unceasing dance.”
A restlessly aflutter moth was bold enough to SONG OF THE HIJAZI CAMEL‐DRIVER
dart
Into the candle’s flame, became one with its My fleet‐footed dromedary,
fiery heart, My doe of the Tartar country,
And ceased to be a thing apart. O my riches, O my money,
O my entire patrimony,
O my fortune, O my plenty,

Quicken your pace just a little; journey’s end Lively is the song that I sing;
is not far off. Lively, but full of foreboding—
For the caravan a warning
O you bright and beautiful thing,
That the hour has struck for starting.
You are lovely, you are charming,
Kisser of the Haram’s paving,
O you houri of my dreaming,
Quicken your pace just a little; journey’s end
You, the Layla of whom bards sing,
is not far off.
You, the desert’s sprightly offspring,
Quicken your pace just a little; journey’s end THE RAINDROP AND THE SEA
is not far off.
I quote what someone else has said,
When the sun of noontide blazes, But wish to make a new point with its aid.
You dive into clear mirages; “A raindrop fell into the sea.
And in moonlit nights’ bright reaches And awed
You flash as a comet flashes— By its expanse, it thought:
With an eye that never closes, ‘By God,
Quicken your pace just a little; journey’s end I am a mere nonentity
is not far off. Beside the sea.
Like the clouds a constant roamer; If it exists, then surely I do not.”’
Sailless boat with sand for river; There came out of the sea a sound,
Born path‐knower like a Khizr, Loud and profound,
Carrier who does not murmur, As of a voice, and it declaimed
Darling of the camel‐driver, “You do not have to be ashamed
Quicken your pace just a little; journey’s end Of being small
is not far off. And feel so sad.
In your rein is stimulation; For all
Travel is your inspiration; Your smallness, you have had
With a very scanty ration, Experiences which were great.
You are night and day in motion, You have watched dawn and evening
Never resting at one station, alternate.
Quicken your pace just a little; journey’s end You have seen orchard, plain and glade.
is not far off. Suspended on a blade
If at dusk you are in Yaman, Of grass or a cloud‐flake,
Then at dawn you are in Qaran. You. have reflected the sun’s rays.
Rough sand of your native region There have been days
Is to your feet soft like jasmine. On which it fell to you to slake
O you fleet gazelle of Khotan, The thirst of desert shrubs. Again,
Quicken your pace just a little; journey’s end There were days when you soothed the pain
is not far off. In the rent bosom of a rose.
At times you slumbered in the vine
Now the moon, her journey over, To wake up as a potent liquid—wine.
Goes into her sand hill shelter, At other times abed
Dawns a new day, so much brighter In dust, you made mere mud.
Than the moon for all her splendour. It was out of my waves that you arose.
Blows the desert wind of summer, Born of me, you come back to me,
Quicken your pace just a little; journey’s end Come back to be
is not far off. A part of me. Now rest
In my broad breast,

And make my mirror gleam What fascinating beauty and
With one more beam What unabashed self‐pride!
Of light. Become a pearl and be
O what a mellifluous song,
Lodged in the depths of me—
In what a lovely tune,
My moon, my star,
From some bird hidden in a tree,
As bright as those of the sky are.”
Singing as if alone!
[Translated by M. Hadi Husain]
The starling and the nightingale
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN GOD AND MAN With song resuscitate
The spirit in the body and
GOD Old longings in the spirit.
I made the whole world with the same
From high‐perched nests up in the trees
water and clay,
The songsters’ warblings seem
But you created Iran, Tartary, and Ethiopia.
To cascade down and mingle with
From the earth I brought forth pure iron,
The babblings of the stream.
But you made from that iron sword, arrow,
and gun. You would think God had graciously
You made an axe for the tree in the garden, Sent down His Paradise
And a cage for the songbird. And placed it at a mountain’s foot
For human ears and eyes.
MAN
To hear and see, in order to
You made the night, I made the lamp;
Spare man the long suspense
You made the earthen bowl, I made the
And agony of waiting till
goblet.
He’s ready to go hence.
You made deserts, mountains and valleys;
I made gardens, meadows and parks. What better things could I wish for
I am one who makes a mirror out of stone, In such a pleasure‐ garden
And turns poison into sweet, delicious drink. Than wine, a book, a lute and ah!
A fair companion?
My life, O moon‐faced saki, for
SAKINAMA A single gracious boon:
Written in Nishat Bagh, Kashmir Awaken in me memories
Of forebears long since gone.
O what a happy season this!
O what a joyous time! Come pour into my empty glass
The meadows are star‐spangled with The stuff which has no name,
Fresh flowers in spring’s prime. Which lights the soul up like a lamp
And burns it like a flame.
Like partridge‐wings the ground is pied
With variegated flowers. I pray to you make tulips grow
How bountiful the waterfall! From my exhausted clay
What diamonds it showers! And build a paradise from dust
Now mouldering away.
Of roses and of tulips what
A riot meets the eye! O don’t you know that east and west,
The breezes frolicsomely roll From Kashghar to Kashan,
On miles of greenery. There is going up one grand song
Replete with life’s elan?
Have you seen mirrored in the stream
The self‐admiring bud?

The peoples’ eye has shed at last The young fish spoke with passion and zest,
That purest of all tears Its face beamed as it spoke.
Whose magic can compel the rose The eaglet laughed. From the shore it rose
To grow on prickly pears. Into the air, saying out loud:
‘I am an eagle, what have I to do with earth?;
But oh! this poor Kashmiri who,
Sea or desert ‐everything is under our wings!’
In slavery born and bred,
Leave the water,
Is busy carving idols from
Befriend the vastness of space!
The tombstones of the dead.
Only an observant eye
His mind is blank and quite devoid Will see the point of it.
Of any higher thought;
So ignorant of his own self
And by self‐shame distraught! THE GLOW‐WORM
His master goes clad in fine silk, I hear the glow‐worm said to itself, “I
All woven with his sweat; Am not an insect that hurts with its sting.
But tatters, patches, rags and shreds One can burn in one’s own fire. So do not
Are all his body’s lot. Regard me as a moth that has to fling
There is not in his eye the light Itself into a flame. If the night be
Of vision that reveals, Dark as deer’s eyes, I light my path myself.”
Nor does there in his bosom beat [Translated by M. Hadi Husain]
The living heart that feels.
SOLITUDE
Come pour a drop upon him of
Your soul‐enkindling wine, I went down to the sea,
And from his smouldering ashes make And said to the restless wave,
A spark leap up and shine. ‘You are for ever searching‐what is your
trouble?
Your bag contains a thousand glowing
THE YOUNG FISH AND THE EAGLET pearls–
But do you, like me, have in your breast
A sprightly young fish said to an eaglet: A pearl of a heart?’
‘This succession of waves that you see It writhed in pain and drew away from the
Is a single sea, and it contains shore–
Crocodiles that bellow more loudly than It did not say a word.
thunder clouds; I went up to the mountain and said,
Its chest is a storehouse ‘How unfeeling you are!
Of hazards and dangers known and Have the sighs and screams of a soul in
unknown. torment
Its huge flood travels swiftly and covers the Ever reached your ears? If within your rocks
land; There is only one diamond formed from a
It has sparkling diamonds and lustrous drop of blood,
pearls. Then come for a moment
One cannot escape its all‐enveloping flood: And talk to a wretched man like me.
Above our heads, under our feet ‐it is It withdrew into itself and held its breath–
everywhere! It did not say a word.
Young and for ever coursing along! I travelled far, and asked the moon,
Revolutions of time have not added to it ‘Your lot is to keep travelling,
Or diminished it.’

Is it also your lot to reach a destination? And what is in the breezes heart?
Your face sends out rays What is this garden in which they disport?”
That turn the world into a land of Jasmine.
“It is,” I said, “A battlefield of life’s war
But does the radiance of the scar on your face
raging everywhere,
Come from the glow of a heart or not?
A unity of many, each one separately self‐
It cast a jealous glance at the star–
aware.
It did not say a word.
To breathe is to sing songs of fire.
I left the moon and the sun behind,
The soul? The inner being’s self‐exposure.
And reached the presence of God.
This is the secret of God’s empire.
I said, ‘Not one atom in Your world
Is intimate with me. “I have descended from the skies and you
The world has no heart, have grown up out of dust.
But I, though a handful of dust, am all heart. They both are forms of self‐display, my fall
It is a pleasant garden, but unworthy of my and your up thrust.
song!” You writhed within a tree‐stem first
A smile appeared on His lips Until your hundred veils were burst—
He did not say a word. And then you reached your being’s crest.
[Translated by Mustansir Mir] “The sap that rises in the world’s veins is our
morning tears;
DEW Our own illusion are those upper and these
“Come down,” the voices said to me, “from lower spheres.
your remote celestial heights. Part of our being are the stars,
Recoil upon yourself and get embroiled with Our kith and kin and our confreres:
stormy ocean‐tides. They are our eyes and we the seers.
Ride where the billow rides, “Just like a needle in a damsel’s garment is
And make new waves besides. the rose’s thorn:
Arise as pearls whose sheen abides.” Close to the rose, its boon companion and
I did not buy the luxury of losing myself in with it twin‐born:
the sea; All thin and wan like one lovelorn,
I did not taste the wine which robs you of Though in the dear one’s bosom borne—
your self‐identity. Another prank of the spring morn.
Another I refused to be: “Arise and re‐engage your heart with
Said goodbye to the sky friendships of the early days;
And chose the tulip’s company. And with the sun, the tulip of the sky,
The tulip said, “O what is all this tumult of exchange a knowing gaze.
birdsong? Consort with those with seeing eyes;
And why do all those morning songsters on Like me take to celestial ways—
the treetops throng? Have you the will to soar the skies?”
Why all this flitting up and down daylong?
LOVE
And should the rose to thorns belong?
O is not this quite wrong? My thought, engaged in finding out the final
truth,
“Who are you and who am I and why do we
Went to the Ka‘bah and the idol‐temple both.
thus consort?
I wandered widely in inquiry’s wilderness,
And wherefore are my branches all these
Collecting my skirts like the whirlwind’s
singing birds’ resort?
flowing dress,
What is their singing’s long and short?

Bound for an unknown destination with no For danger brings out what is best in you:
guide, It is the touchstone of all that is true.”
On my imagination’s shoulders borne astride,
Demanding wine with just a broken cup in
THE WORLD OF ACTION
hand, This world is a free tavern, and to all who
Broadcasting like the dawn a net to catch the come to it
wind, Wine is served in accordance with their
Recoiling upon myself like waves in the sea, bowl’s capacity.
Roaming the desert in a whirlwind’s agony, The secret that has not yet been expressed in
But suddenly Your love came and assailed my words
heart Has been expressed here in wine’s
And with a mighty blow it cut the Gordian overbrimming charactery.
Knot. Those who come here get drunk with action
It taught me all that being and non‐being and not with mere words.
mean;
Dregs at the bottom of life’s cup is mere
It changed my idol‐temple to a holy shrine;
philosophy.
And striking lightning fashion my self’s
We have endeavoured hard to make life take
granary,
to action’s path,
It taught my heart the joy of burning silently.
And now its morning’s sun is near the margin
All in a rapture I was carried off my feet;
of the sky.
And I became a shadow, from myself discrete.
O you who try to be consistent with your past
The sublimating force of what You taught my
mistakes,
heart
Whatever you regard as rest is here mobility.
Sent my dust soaring right up to Heaven’s
We who have come out to pursue the path of
starry height.
seeking have
My being’s storm‐tossed ship at long last
Converted knowledge into action and thus
came to port,
made it live.
And into beauty’s channel all my ugliness
was poured. [Translated by M. Hadi Husain]
I have no tale to tell except the tale of love;
I do not care if men approve or disapprove.
LIFE
Of learning’s light I do not have the slightest I asked a lofty sage what Life might be.
need; “The wine whose bitterest cup is best,” said
And all I have to do is burn and melt and he.
bleed. Said I, “A vile worm rearing head from mire.”
Said he, “A salamander born of fire.”
LIVE DANGEROUSLY
“Its nature steeped in evil,” I pursued.
Said one gazelle to another, “I will Said he, “’Tis just this evil makes it good.”
Take shelter in the Harem from now on; “It winds not to the goal, though it aspire.”
For there are hunters at large in the wild, “The goal,” said he, “lies hid in that desire.”
And there is no peace here for a gazelle. Said I, “Of earth it comes, to earth it goes.”
From fear of hunters I want to be free. Said he, “The seed bursts earth, and is the
O how I long for some security.” rose.”
His friend replied, “Live dangerously, my [Translated by R.A. Nicholson]
Wise friend, if it is life you truly seek.
Like a sword of fine mettle hurl yourself
Upon the whetting‐stone; stay sharp thereby.

THE WISDOM OF THE WEST Your sigh, your song.
With your song you have made
The story goes that in Iran Such a lovely world
A worthy man, That paradise itself appears to me
Intelligent and wise, To be some conjurer’s trick.
Died, suffering great agonies,
Departing with a heart THE POET
Full of distress and smart, You charm travellers’ hearts with pointed
He went up to God’s throne talk
And said: “God I am one Except that, in the pleasure it gives,
Grieved at the way that I One cannot compare it with the sharp thorn.
Was made to die. What can I do, for by nature I am not
Your angel of Death is someone
Supposed to be a specialist, Who can live for long in one place!
And yet he has no expertise, My heart is restless,
No knowledge of the new skills that exist Like the west wind in a field of tulips.
In the fine art of killing. He The moment my eyes light upon a pretty
Kills, but does it so clumsily. face,
The world is going rapidly ahead, My heart begins to long for one prettier still.
But his growth has stopped dead. In the spark I seek a star, in the star a sun:
The west develops wonderful new skills I have no wish for a destination,
In this as in so many other fields. For if I stop I die.
Fine are the ways it kills, When I get up, having drunk
And great are its skill’s yields. A cup of wine matured by one spring,
It has encompassed even thought with death. I begin to sing another verse,
Death is all its philosophies’ life‐breath And long for yet another spring.
It is what all its sciences devise. I seek the end of what has no end –
Its submarines are crocodiles, With a restless eye, and hope in my heart.
With all their predatory wiles. The lover’s heart dies in an eternal heaven –
Its bombers rain destruction from the skies. In it no afflicted soul cries,
Its gases so obscure the sky There is no sorrow, and no one to drive
They blind the sun’s world‐seeing eye. sorrow away!
Its guns deal death so fast
The Angel of Death stands aghast,
Quite out of breath LIFE AND ACTION
In coping with this rate of death.
Dispatch this old fool to the West (IN REPLY TO A POEM OF HEINE)
To learn the art of killing fast—and best.” “I have lived a long, long while,” said a fallen
[Translated by M. Hadi Husain] shore;
“What I am know as ill as I knew of yore.”
THE HOURI AND THE POET Then swiftly advanced wave from the Sea
upshot;
THE HOURI “If I roll, I am,” it said; “if I rest, I am not.”
You are not attracted to wine,
And you do not look at me: [Translated by R.A. Nicholson]
How surprising that you do not know GOD’S COUNTRY
The art of mixing! When Tariq burned his boats on Andalusia’s
It is but a tune of quest, a flame of desire, coast,

His men observed: “It was an unwise thing to Towards the shoreless ocean how merrily
do. it flows;
We are so far from home; how shall we now Linked with itself, unlinked with all, it
return ? flows.
Foregoing means is wrong in the Divine
A hundred brooks from woods and meadows,
Law’s view.”
from vales and gardens and villas cried:
He laughed and, putting his hand on his
“O thou with whom accords the earth’s
sword, declared:
expanse!
“All lands are God’s and they are all our
Stricken with drought, we have fallen by the
homeland too.”
way;
[Translated by M. Hadi Husain] Protect us from the pillage of the sandy
waste!”
THE STREAM1 It opened its breast to the winds of the East
Behold the stream! How merrily it flows and the West,
Right through the meadow, like the Milky Clasping its weak and wailing fellow
Way! travelers.
’Twas sound asleep in the cradle of the Towards the shoreless ocean how merrily
clouds; it flows;
Opened its wondering eye in the lap of the With a hundred thousand matchless pearls
mountains. it flows.
From the pebbles its graceful motion music The surging river went over dam dyke,
strikes; Went over the narrow gorge of valley, hill and
Its brows chaste and unsullied like the mirror! glen,
Towards the shoreless ocean how merrily Made one, like a torrent, each hollow and
it flows; eminence,
Linked with itself, unlinked with all, it Went over the king’s palace and rampart and
flows. field and orchard.
Around its track Spring fashioned a fairyland: Passionate and fierce and sharp, restless and
Narcissus bloomed, and tulip, and jessamine. heart‐inflaming.
The rose said temptingly: Stay with us here Each time it arrived at the New and went
awhile; beyond the Old.
The rose‐bud laughed and pulled the helm of Towards the shoreless ocean how merrily
its skirt. it flows;
Unmindful of these green‐robed beauty‐ Linked with itself, unlinked with all, it
vendors, flows.
It cleft the desert and rent the breast of hill [Translated by Prof. Hamid Ahmad Khan]
and dale.
ALAMGIR’S LETTER
(To one of his sons who used to pray for the

father’s death)
1 Iqbal’s footnote: ‘The Stream’ is a free rendering
of Goethe’s celebrated poem, ‘Mohamet’s Gesang,’ Do you know that to punish and reward
which was composed long before West‐Osetlicher Has been from old the business of the Lord?
Divan. In it the German poet has exquisitely
He has heard many anguishing laments
brought forth the Islamic concept of life. In fact, it
From this benighted planet’s residents,
formed part of the planned drama on Islam which
he could not complete. The translation is meant But did a cry escape His lips? Oh no.
only to show Goethe’s point of view.

Like Shabbir He has seen streams of blood Of shrubs that interlace.
flow.
The tulips burst forth from the earth;
While Jacob wept, He looked on unimpressed;
The waves leap up in streams.
And by Job’s wailing He was not distressed.
Look at the sparks the dust puts forth
Do not think that you ever can ensnare
And the waves’ silver seams.
That seasoned Hunter with your foolish
prayer. Come bring your lute and strike its strings,
And fill your cup with wine,
PARADISE And let there be gay gatherings
This world of ours is full of a strange jugglery. To greet spring’s caravan.
Heaven does not have this kind of a revolving Look at that highborn Brahmin maid,
sky. Lily‐limbed, tulip‐faced,
Its Joseph is a stranger to imprisonment; Look at her and feel yourself fade
And its Zuleikha’s heart does not know how Into someone low‐placed.
to cry.
Its Abraham has not been cast into a fire. LOVE
Its Moses does not have a live spark in his To Intellect, which, if it chose,
soul. Could set the universe aflame,
Its barque has never had to cope with stormy Learns from Love to illuminate,
winds, Instead of burning up, its frame.
And never has been tossed about by seas that
roll. To Love it is that your soul owes
There certainty has never been assailed by Its heightened states’ engenderment—
doubt. From Rumi’s ardent passion to
There union is not plagued by separation’s Farabi’s solemn wonderment.
fear. I sing these joy‐inspiring words—
How can you have the joy of straying from I sing them and dance with delight—
the path, Love is a balsam for the heart
If the path that you have to tread is fixed and Despite its soul‐tormenting might.
clear?
Never live in a world devoid of joy and zest, Not every subtle point can be
Where God exists, but Beelzebub does not Expressed in words. Consult a while
exist. Your own heart: maybe you will see
My point made in the heart’s own style.
KASHMIR
HUMANITY
Repair to Kashmir’s land and see
Hills, meadows, pastures, wealds. Last night an infidel wine‐vendor said to me:
See miles on miles of greenery “Attend to the wise counsel I give and hold
And endless tulip‐fields. fast
To it. The custom of the drinkers of the past
Whiff after whiff spring breezes blow, Was to go from the tavern drunk quite
And hosts of birds of spring— merrily,
The thrush, the quail, the dove — all go But in their senses still. I do not ask that you
From place to place and sing. Should not say your heart’s say; but say it
To hide it from the jealous sky with all due
The earth veils its fair face Respect and only drink what you can carry
Behind a complex tracery well.
As for God’s role, O it is grand; but let me tell

You, dust that we are, striving is our quality: TO A MUSLIM MISSIONARY IN ENGLAND
Do not sell for God’s power your humanity.”
Time has rekindled Nimrod’s fire
[Translated by M. Hadi Husain] So that the mettle of Islam may once again be
proved.
SLAVERY
Come, let us lift the veil from our heart’s
Man let himself, dull thing, be wooed wound,
By his own kind to servitude, For it is the sun’s nakedness that makes it
And cast the dearest pearl he had shine over the world.
Before Jamshed and Kaikobad; You have made many subtle points before the
Till so ingrained his cringings were, charmers of the West,
He grew more abject than a cur— And melted many idols’ hearts with the heat
Who ever saw at one dog’s frown of your arguments.
Another dog’s meek head bow down? Come, now give some news of the city of
[Translated by V.G. Kiernan] Sulayma to the people of Hijaz,
And fling a spark into the dead, cold
THE RIDDLE OF THE SWORD conscience of the people of Turan.
O knower of maqam, strike the note of iraq and
Name that very keen contender
khurasan;
Which draws luster just like water
Revive the singing of ghazals in the assemblies
From a stone,
of the ‘Ajamis.
But which, unlike Alexander,
It is a long time since the Afghan’s lute awaits
Does not owe it to a Khizr
the plectrum’s strokes.
As a boon,
What melodies have turned to blood, pent up
And which, like a tear‐washed vision,
within its breast.
Purified by that ablution,
Why tell Love’s story to a people given to
Is agleam,
lust?
Neat and clean and clear and limpid,
Why put the surma of wise Solomon into ants’
With its raiment quite unwetted
eyes?
In midstream.
Its theme needs no longer statement GHANI KASHMIRI
Than a single line, if trenchant.
That nightingale of poetry, Ghani,
DEMOCRACY Who sang in Kashmir’s paradisal land,
Used, while at home, to shut up all the doors,
You seek the treasures of an alien philosophy
But leave them open while away from home.
From common, low‐grade people, themselves
Somebody questioned him concerning this.
poor of mind.
“O charming bard,” he said, “Why do you do
Ants crawling on the ground cannot attain
This strange thing, which nobody
The heights of wisdom of a Solomon.
understands
Avoid the method of democracy;
The meaning of ?“ Ghani, who had no wealth
Become the bondman of someone of ripe
Except his gift of poetry, replied:
intelligence;
“What people see me doing is quite right.
For a few hundred donkeys cannot have,
There is nothing of any value in my house
combined,
Except myself. When I am in, the house
The brains of one man, of one homo sapiens.
Is to be guarded like a treasure‐house.
When I am out, it is an empty place,
Which nobody would care to walk into.”

LINES ADDRESSED TO MUSTAFA KAMAL Is this our aeroplane,
PASHA With speedier wings than angels’ wings,
In flight a royal falcon and
There was once an unlettered man, An eagle in sheer strength,
Thanks to whose wisdom we learned all With far‐flung regions in its range!
About the mysteries While in the sky, it thunders and it roars;
Of human destiny. But in its nest it is as quiet as a fish.
In origin we were Our wisdom has created Gabriels
Nothing but a faint spark. From common clay,
He looked at us, and we became And has made of the earth a proof of heaven.”
A world‐illuminating sun. On hearing my speech that wise bird
The old man of the Harem wiped Looked at me in a knowing way.
The imprint of Love from his heart, Then, scratching his wings with his beak,
And we were humbled in the world He said: “I do not marvel at your words;
In keeping with our sin’s degree. But tell me, O you, who can see
It is the desert wind that suits The how and why of things,
Our natural make‐up. Whose magic holds sway over everything,
The morning breeze’s breath turned us Be it high, be it low,
Into buds with constricted hearts. Have you done well your tasks on earth
O that tumultuous din of ours which once That you are meddling with the sky?”
Used to shoot up above the sky,
Reduced to treble and bass, LOVE
Became a mere lament. Let me expose to you who heard,
How many quarries we once caught And where,
Without nets and tied to our saddlestraps! That heart‐enkindling word
But now, with bows and arrows under Which is, and which is not, a mystery.
armpits, we Dew stole it from the sky,
Ourselves became our quarries’ prey. And dropped it in the rose’s ear.
“Wherever you can find a way The rose passed it on to the nightingale,
Race your horse thither, for Which sang it to the breezes as a wail.
We have been outdone many times
On this maneuvering‐ground.”1 CIVILIZATION
THE AEROPLANE Man, who has brightened up his face
With civilization’s rouge,
Perched on a rosebush branch Displays the dark dust which is he
One morning, a bird said As if it were a mirror.
To other birds:
“The son of man has not been given wings, He hides his iron fist
And so this poor fool is earthbound.” Under a velvet glove.
I said to him: “O little bird, Charmed by the pen,
Who talk so airily, He has laid off the sword.
Do not mind if I speak the truth to you. This slave of lust once built
We have made of the aeroplane our wings, An idol‐temple of world peace,
And so have found a way to heaven. And danced around it to
What a sky‐soaring bird The music of the pipes of peace.
But when war tore the veil
The quotation is from the sixteenth century
1
Off its pretence,
Mughal poet Naziri Nishapuri.

It stood exposed Ÿ
As man’s blood‐thirsty enemy. Around my grave
Stood in a ring
THE WINE REMAINING A bevy of fair mourners,
All comely, winsome, lily‐white.
(GHAZALS)
Ÿ The caravan of roses and of tulips has
Alighted in the garden.
When spring made of the garden O wherefrom come
A veritable concert hall, So many things with bleeding hearts?
The nightingale’s impassioned songs
Made buds open their eyes. You seek good manners, learning, taste
In the schoolroom.
Do not imagine that the clay we are But no one buys wine from
Was fashioned when the world was made; A glassware factory.
For we are still a thought
In Being’s mind. The teaching of the West’s philosophers
Increased my wisdom’s fund.
Do not preen yourself on your scholarship. The company of seers lit up
It takes much more to drink with decorum. My being’s very core.
The city jurist, when he drank,
Spilled his wine all over his dress. Bring out the music which
Is in your nature’s make‐up.
All that spring did was that it put O self‐oblivious man,
Together scattered leaves. Cast out of your head others’ tunes.
It is our eye that lends
Colour and brightness to the tulip. No one has realised
That I too have some worth.
This is the sign of one who has I am a precious object fallen
His eye fixed on his inner self: Into the hands of blind men.
He speaks no more of present things
Ÿ
And absent things.
Our thought is constantly engaged
One night a witty old man in the tavern made
In fashioning new gods.
An apt remark. He said:
Released from one bond, it
“In every age there is an Abraham,
Entangles itself in another.
And there is also Nimrod’s fire.”
Come to the roof‐top and remove
What forms I shaped
Unhesitatingly Your face’s veil.
In life’s workshop!
There is nobody in Your street
What passing things have passed away!
More eager to see You than I.
And what things that were there are now no
more! I am so jealous of
The seeing power of my eyes
Speak gently to the idol‐worshipper;
That I weave with my sight
For Love, that brooks no slight,
One more veil for Your face.
Laid the foundations of an idol‐house
In Mahmud’s heart itself. One look, one flitting smile,
One shining tear—
In India life’s anthem is
Other than these there is
Devoid of all effect;
No pledge of love.
For even David’s songs
Cannot breathe life into the dead.

I am proud of my love, which with In this small halting‐place
The grief of separation forged Illumined by the moon.
Another bond of pain
Arise and make a man
Connecting You and me.
Out of the dust you are.
In order that your song, O bird of spring, The time allowed to you
May be more lively, take Is only the duration of a spark.
A little more fire from
Assuming you are not a man of lust,
The sanctuary of my heart.
Let me give you a tip:
The harp of the Timurids broke: Love gathers strength from plaints
Its music is alive. That go without effect.
It burst forth from
My song has relit old fires
Another instrument of Samarkand.
In Persia, but Arabia
Custodian of the Harem, Is still a stranger to
Do not admit Iqbal; My ardent lays.
For he has up his sleeve Ÿ
New idols every day.
This is my way of finding in this company
Ÿ
A confidant:
I have this odd complaint I sing ghazals and through them I
Against my seeing eyes: Convey the message of my Friend.
When You unveil Yourself,
In that peculiar privacy
My sight acts as a veil.
Where speech acts as a veil
From me, a creature of mere clay, I let my heart
Tell creatures of light this: Speak in the language of the eyes.
Beware a pinch of dust
In order to cleanse it
Which is aware of its identity.
And make it fit to see Your face,
We sing and burn I wash my sight
In spring’s assembly hall. With tears.
Our morning song
Though my affairs are tied up in a knot,
Has set our wings aflame.
Just like a bud, I grow
How can one who has lost himself With a bud’s eagerness
Know where my songs come from? To witness the sun’s glory.
My world is not
My being is a wave,
His world.
Which fears no flood.
I fell in a nook of the garden, Do not think that I seek a shore
Bleeding like a tulip. While swimming in the sea of life.
A dart from someone’s eyes
He is to me
Struck at my heart.
What sight is to the eye.
In living men’s creed life Even at the farthest remove
Is a pursuit of hardships. I always am with Him.
I have not visited the Ka‘bah. Why not?
He painted on my eye’s screen
Because the journey is so safe.
The picture of a world.
Untold assemblies have been organised, It is as if I were
Only to be dissolved, Under a magic‐maker’s spell.

Its dome with its doors shut Why pride yourself on your riches?
Cannot contain me. In the city of the lovesick
I am a thorn Mahmud’s broken heart
In the side of this ancient sky. Is not worth Ayaz’s smile.
The joy of being on the wing His the pride of independence,
Will not let me rest in my nest. His the wealth of poverty.
One moment on a tree branch, One who, though poor, is no beggar
The next I am on the stream’s brink. Makes a king’s heart quake in fear.
Ÿ You ask me where I reside:
Arise and waken notes In the heart’s enchanted world,
Aslumber in the organ’s keys. Where depressions are not so low
Teach singing birds And where heights are not so high.
Fresh tunes. Leave alone the path of reason.
The path is like a tulip‐bed There are other ways to Him—
With passers‐bys’ blood‐drops. Humbleness of heart,
Who is the one whose proud might has Chastity of eye.
Waylaid the caravan of humble Love? Still imperfect on Your path,
Since You have opened to the garden Immature through Your neglect,
Its sleepy eye, I have a soul half on fire,
Give the narcissus time You have an eye but half open.
Sufficient for a glance. My prostrations have strewn roses
To inmates of the inner sanctuary say On the idol‐temple’s path.
This from me, tongueless as I am: Too great is my heart’s devotion
“Words never uttered by you are For mere two‐prostration praying.
On little children’s lips.” What pride, what humility
O you who lengthen out your prayers Are there in a lovers’ quarrel!
In front of other men, Eyes pretending nonchalance,
When you bow your head on the ground, And heart ignoring the pretence.
The unbelievers watching fume indignantly. Ÿ
Although the intellect Come, for a saki with a rose‐like face
Rates Love not very high, Is playing on a lute.
I would not give a lover’s anguished sigh The air of spring has made the garden look
For Jamshid’s throne. As if it were a painting from Arzhang.
A Brahmin said to Ghaznavi: The tulip‐bride has used for henna
“Look at my magic powers; The beart’s blood of the spring.
You who broke idols have become How greedily, how lustily,
Yourself Ayaz’s slave.” She hankers after colour!
Ÿ The eye can grasp,
Let me tell a secret to With the aid of a hearty song,
The servants of the king: A meaning that is too big for
You can make the whole world yours The garment of mere words.
With a moving song. Look with the eyes of Love
So that you find some trace of Him.

To reason’s eye the world And makes of flowers cups.
Is nothing but illusion and deceit.
When love attains its climax, then
From Love learn how to act, No rivalry remains.
And then do what you like; In flitting round a candle moths
For Love is the quintessence of Join hands with one another.
Sagacity and sense.
Life builds, but also burns;
Your final goal and mine And what it burns it builds again.
Are higher than the heavens. How ruthlessly it burns!
The sun is but a milestone on How eagerly it builds!
The highway of our caravan.
An eagle in a cage,
You have surpassed yourself, When he accepts food offered,
O water‐drop. Becomes so timid that he trembles
It were a great shame to get to the sea, On seeing shadows of quails’ wings.
And then not come up as a pearl.
O gardener, tell Iqbal
You do not know your worth. To be off from the garden,
The shining ruby is For this spellbinding singer
A mere stone: it acquires Makes men forget the roses.
Its preciousness from you. Ÿ
Ÿ
Convey my salutation
I never worshipped forms; To that fire‐eating Turk
I broke the idol house. Who set aflame with one glance
I am a rushing flood, A cityful of longing.
Which bursts all bounds.
The point of this will be seen by
About my being or non‐being A sympathetic heart:
Thought was in doubt. I swore to drink no more,
But Love made manifest But did not break the jar of wine.
The fact that I exist.
O nightingale, I warned you many times
I worship in the idol‐house, Against the rose’s infidelity;
And I pray in the Ka‘bah, But you persist in clinging to
Around my neck the sacred thread, Its scentless skeleton.
And in my hand the rosary.
The secret of life, if you want
I dare not waste the wealth of grief To know it, lies in restlessness.
You have bestowed on me. It would be shameful for a stream
So I stem in my eyes the tears To go on resting in the sea.
That well up from my heart.
O I am happy that to lovers
Wise in my words, You Have granted restless souls
I am mad in my deeds. And that You have created no
Drunk with the wine of love for you, Cure for the malady of seeking.
I am still fully sober.
“Do not seek union with Me,
Ÿ For I transcend all thought.”
The breeze of spring makes of By saying this You gave my tears
The garden a wine‐tavern. A new excuse for flowing.
It casts buds into jar‐shapes,

Create a furor in the garden, An Alexander’s whole domain.
Storm it with your lament.
O morning breeze, convey
Until breath gets choked in your breast
My greetings to the happy Weimar town.
Do not give up your wailing.
The light that radiated from it has
Ÿ Illumined many sages’ minds.
You have made every thorn Ÿ
Prick us and know our tale.
Fetch wine, for the heavens
You took us to the wilderness
Have turned in our favour.
Of madness, and let everybody know.
Songs are germinating
Our fault was we ate of a grain, Like buds from the branches.
And his that he refused to bow.
I drink in remembrance
You never pardoned that poor devil,
Of that holy person
Nor have You yet forgiven us.
Who would not drink wine but
A hundred worlds spring up like flowers With his boon companions.
From our imagination’s soil.
May the tribe increase of
There is but one real world; and that too
That sagacious man who
You have made of the blood of murdered
Said that the light of hope
wishes.
Is a torch on life’s path.
Like colour the reflection of Your beauty
What I sing is too high
Shines through the glass.
For my likely listeners.
You have made of the goblet’s wall
So I sing where no one
A screen for Yourself, just like wine.
Listens to my singing.
O, lay some new foundation, for
Verse is such a thing as
We happen to like novelty.
Tests the buyer’s judgment.
What is this giddy peep‐show You have made
I am glad that no one
Of yesterdays, to‐morrows and to‐days?
Buys my poetry.
Ÿ
From his pleasing verses
Happy the man who burned with flames of It is clear that Iqbal,
wine Teacher of philosophy,
His intellectual goods. Turned to Love’s vocation.
He gained a new thing from the flames,
Ÿ
Rich like the tulip’s fiery hue.
I long for manly weapons—
Come you, too, give your face
Bow, dagger, spear and sword.
A vernal freshness with a cup of wine,
O, do not come with me,
For spring makes pious Sufis sell
For mine is Shabbir’s way.
Their garments for that stuff.
Look at me gathering
I felt great pity for
Straw for a nest,
The jurist, when I heard
And look at me again,
The taverner refused to buy of him
Wishing for fire to burn it off.
A legal ruling for a cup of wine.
He said: “Keep your lips sealed.
Do not judge music by
Let not My secret be betrayed.”
My ineffectual songs.
I said: “O no, I must
A lightning flash of it can burn
Proclaim that You are great.”

He said: “Ask for “Go, light a fire in the Harem itself,
Whatever is your wish.” And let it set your heart aflame.”
I said: “I wish to know Ÿ
The mystery of fate.”
From your own dust elicit the fire
All that I know That is not yet aflame.
About my life is this: It is not worthwhile borrowing
A dream forgotten, which I wish The radiance of others.
To have interpreted for me.
I would not give
O where is that alluring glance For Jamshid’s realm
That captivated my heart first? Naziri’s line:
God bless you, I desire “One who has not been killed can never have
That arrow once again. been from our tribe.”
Ÿ
That sorcerer, the intellect,
Learn how to put a rosary Attacks you with a host;
Bead on the sacred thread, But do not be dismayed,
And if your eyes see double, For Love is not alone.
Then learn how not to see.
You do not know the rah,
Come forth like fragrance from And you are ignorant of the maqam.
The closet of the bud, There is no tune
Mix with the morning breeze, Which is not in Sulayma’s lute.
And thus learn how to blow.
I have my eyes so fixed on myself that,
If you have been created as Although the beauty of my Friend
A humble drop of dew, Has conquered the whole world,
Arise and learn how to fall on I have no time to look at it.
A tulip’s heart.
Come, let us make an uproar in
If you have been created as a thorn The city of the lovely.
Adhering to a fresh‐blown rose, The madness of the lively does not seek
Maintain the garden’s honour: A desert for a roaming ground.
Learn how to prick.
Come, tell a tale about
If you are weeded by the gardener out The hunting of the monsters of the sea.
Of your own flower‐bed, Do not say that your boat
Learn how to grow Is unused to the sea’s ways.
Afresh as grass.
O I admire the courage of
So that you come out stronger and A traveller who does not tread
More bitter still, An easy path that does not pass
Remain in the wine cellar, and Through deserts, over mountains, across
Be seasoned there. streams.
How long will you remain Live in the company
Under another’s wings? Of lively revellers.
Learn how to fly Shun the discipleship of one
With freedom in the garden air. Who is not an uproarious man.
When I knocked at the tavern door, The acme of expression is
The tavern‐keeper said: Not to speak in bare, literal terms.

The speech of inmates of the inner circle is O saki, O musician.
Always in symbols and in signs.
From Samarkand, I fear,
Ÿ There may arise again
A wave can well be severed from The threat of a Hulaku or
The bosom of the sea, The terror of a Genghis Khan.
And you can well enclose the boundless sea O singer, sing a ghazal or a couplet of
Within the channel of your private stream. The holy guide of Rum,
A cityful of hearts can well be made to bleed So that my soul may be immersed
With a poignant song. In the fire of Tabriz.
A gardenful of flowers can well be pierced Ÿ
By a whiff of the morning breeze.
Let surma brighten once again
The mighty Gabriel can well be turned Your magic‐working eyes,
Into a hand‐trained sparrow. And let my frenzied urge to sing
His wings can well be tied up with About them be intensified.
A single near‐singed hair.
Invent another pattern, and
O Alexander, kingship is Create a new, maturer man.
More frail than Jamshid’s cup. It does not suit a God
A whole worldful of mirrors can be smashed To fashion dolls of clay.
With but a single stone.
The story of my heart is best untold,
If you are stable in yourself, My anguish best concealed.
What harm can a destructive flood do you? But, O my confidants, what shall I do
For you can settle at its bottom as About the pleasure of complaining?
A pearl does at the bottom of the sea.
Where is the breast‐inflaming sigh
Ascetic that I am, too. proud And where the heart‐dissolving tear?
To ask, my creed is this: Stones to hurl at the mirror of
That I had rather see my body break to bits The knot‐resolving intellect.
Than seek a medicine to keep it whole.
Assemble in the garden and the meadow,
Ÿ And play the lute,
A hundred nights of wailing, Drink wine, sing ghazals, and
A hundred mornings of travail, Unbutton your qabas.
A hundred fire‐emitting sighs. It is daybreak. The caravan
The product? One poignant verse. Has said its prayers and is all set to start.
Do you know how Perhaps you have not heard
You can tell love from lust? The starting‐bell.
The former is Farhad’s pickaxe, I do not bear with monarchs’ airs,
The latter is Parvez’s guile. Nor do I seek their favours.
Tell those behind the inner curtain this: O greed‐deluded man,
The handful of dust that is I Look at a pauper’s bravery.
Is dust that sees, Ÿ
Is dust that raises storms.
The intellect’s deceitfulness
A pleasing song sung by Is worthy of remark:
An early morning bird It is the leader of the caravan,
Intoxicates me and enraptures me, Yet fond of highway robbery.

Do not seek guidance from For I am a celestial bird
That jack‐of‐all‐trades, intellect. Charged with a message from the Friend.
Apply to Love, for it is perfect in
I draw the curtain and
The only art it practises.
Behind it speak.
Although the West converses with the stars, O I am a blood‐shedding sword,
Beware, But I keep myself sheathed.
There is in all it does Ÿ
A taint of sorcery.
The sap in the tree of our life
What can I say concerning life Comes from our thirst.
And death? For in this ancient inn To seek the spring of immortality
Life is slow death, Is to be unadventurous.
And death life’s final agony.
Whom shall I tell the story of my heart?
Pull up your horse sometimes And in what way?
At the graves of us martyrs; For sighs are ineffectual
Our silence has And looking is irreverence.
Something to say.
Chant your ghazals,
Pitch your tent in the desert of Arabia again, But let the key be very low;
For Persia is convivial company, For birdsong here
Which has stale wine Is still in undertones.
And breakable wine‐cups.
Men of Hijaz have robbed
No city shaykh, no poet, and Our caravan of all its goods.
No holy man, Iqbal But silence! For our friend
Is but a roadside beggar, but Is from Arabia.
He has a proud, contented heart.
The tree of the Turks has borne fruit because
Ÿ
It was struck by the lightning of the West.
O I long for a sight The advent of the Chosen One took place
Of that full moon. Because of Abu Lahabism.
So I stand hand on heart,
Do not assess what I sing by
Eyes fixed on a house‐top.
The standards of Iran and Hindustan.
“My day,” said Beauty, “knows It is a gem which is the product of
No evening.” Nocturnal tears.
“I burn eternally,” Come, I have brought
Said Love. From the vat of the guide of Rum
The wine of poesy,
I am a prisoner of no yesterday,
Much younger than the wine of grapes.
Of no tomorrow, no today,
I have Ÿ
No station, high or low. A true lover does not differentiate
I am the wine of mystery Between the Ka‘bah and the idol‐house.
In search of one to drink me up. The one is the Beloved’s privacy,
So in the Magi’s wine‐house I The other His appearing publicly.
Rotate like a wine‐cup. I am glad my grave has been built
Do not pass unconcernedly In the Harem’s own street.
By my distracted song, With my eyelashes I will dig

A tunnel from the Ka‘bah to the idol‐house. Ÿ
Better than any company This azure sky,
In this world or the next All that is high, all that is low,
Are a sagacious friend For all its vastness, is
And two goblets of wine. Encompassed in the lover’s heart.
Here everyone has eyes If you desire to know the secret of eternity,
And everyone a tongue. Then open your eyes to yourself,
So in your company For you are many, you are one,
One story breeds another. You are concealed and you are manifest.
Who is He Who has launched O my afflicted heart,
A night‐attack on hearts, You now know what is love.
Who like a Turk has plundered You cannot rest within my breast
A hundred cities of desire? And pour yourself out through my eyes.
Where I roam in my mad pursuit Arise, for spring
The angel Gabriel is but small game. Has lit the flowers’ lamps.
Come, O my manly courage, cast Arise and spend some moments with
A lasso upon God Himself. The tulips of the wilderness.
Iqbal has in the pulpit blurted out Love’s magic charms are numberless,
A secret that was not to be revealed. And countless Beauty’s ways.
Well, he had issued forth still raw O we are infinite,
From the wine‐tavern’s privacy. Both You and I.
Ÿ A hundred times were raised to heaven,
A hundred times were buried in the earth
There is no waking up without You from
The power and the pomp
Non‐being’s sleep,
Of Khaqans and Faghfurs, of Daras and
No being without You,
Jamshids.
No non‐being with You.
Alone with myself, yet with Him. O what is
Are our minds in the world,
this?
Or is the world within our minds?
Are we together or apart?
Keep your mouth shut; this knot
What do you say, O intellect?
Can never be resolved.
What do you say, O Love?
My friends’ minds are disturbed Ÿ
By my distracted songs.
My mind is restless owing to Lines Addressed To A Sufi
A song that never can be sung. Neither have I nor you the wish
O zephyr, after all, To go to Layla’s house.
What can dew’s tiny sprinkling do? Neither have I nor you the heart
The fervour in the tulip’s heart To bear the desert heat.
Cannot be assuaged. I am a young wine‐server and
Attach your heart to God, You keeper of an old wine‐shop.
And seek no help from kings. The company is thirsty, yet
Theirs is a threshold on which one Wine neither you have, nor have I.
Should never rub one’s brow. We have pledged our hearts and our faith
To ‘Ajam’s lovely ones.

The flame of love for Sulayma. There are no pearls.
Burns neither you nor me.
Whatever is the object of
There was an empty shell The strivings of our thought
That we picked up on the seashore. Is in our eyes,
The precious pearl But like our sight invisible.
Have neither you nor I. Ÿ
Do not talk any more about Our wailing is without effect,
The Joseph we have lost. And fruitless are our cries.
The warmth of a Zulaikha’s heart The gain from all this ardency?
Have neither you nor I. A heart whose songs are steeped in blood.
It is best that we make do with a lamp In fervent quest of Him the heart
That has our garment’s skirt for shade. Created temple and Harem.
The power to face Sinai’s lamp We long for Him:
Have neither you nor I. He watches us with unconcern.
Ÿ
The veiled ones have unveiled themselves,
I am a guidepost to While I have gone into my self’s retreat.
The goal of heart’s desire. Adhere to me. Look at my self‐respecting love.
Mix with your dust Who is fond of display—say, they or I?
A spark of my pure fire.
The singer at the tavern made
The tulip‐bride A subtle point last night. He said:
Has come out of its boudoir. “The tasting of wine is a sin;
Come, let me fire your soul The drinking of it none:”
With passion‐stimulating talk.
Wayfarers’ life consists
The tale of Farhad’s grief In hurrying from place to place.
And of Parvez’s happiness The caravan of waves
Is told in every age Has no road and no goal.
In different ways.
“Our goal is God.”
Though born in India, This saying of the guide of Rum
I draw my inspiration from Was like a flame flung at
The hallowed dust The straw that is my self.
Of Kabul and Bokhara and Tabriz Ÿ
Ÿ
The fervent quality of verse
In the world of our heart Comes from the heart’s ecstatic cry.
There are no phases of the moon. This candle is alight
There is a revolution, but Thanks to the heart, which is its moth.
No morning and no evening.
A handful of mere dust,
Woe to the caravan We had no gusto for lament.
Which, lacking enterprise, Our clamour is all due
Looks for a road To the rotation of the heart’s wine‐cup.
That is not dangerous.
This dark abode of dust,
Abandon reason and become embroiled Which you have named the world,
In the waves of the sea of Love, Is just a worn‐out image from
In reason’s little stream The idol‐temple of the heart.

Sitting in his observatory, Set foot more boldly in
The star‐gazing astronomer The sanctum of Your lovers’ hearts.
Is looking for the boundary You are the master of the house.
Of the heart’s wilderness. Why do You come in stealthily?
Celestial beings are caught in You plunder the possessions of
The lasso of His glance. The Sayers of the rosary,
The Sufi is a victim of And You make night‐raids on the hearts
The depredations of the heart. Of wearers of the sacred thread.
Mahmud of Ghazna, who Sometimes You raise a hundred hosts
Razed idol‐houses to the ground, To shed the blood of friends,
Himself became a votary And sometimes come into the company
Of the heart’s idol‐house. Equipped with measure and with cups.
One more insouciant than On the bush of a Moses You
The Muslim I have never seen. Hurl flames so ruthlessly,
He has a heart in his breast, yet And to the candle of an orphan You
He is a stranger to the heart. Come gladly like a moth.
Ÿ Come, quaff a cup of wine, Iqbal,
The majesty is snatched away From the wine‐cellar of the self.
From mountains and bestowed on leaves You are back from the tavern of the West
Of grass. A royal crown A stranger to yourself.
Is put on the head of a roadside beggar. Ÿ
In Love’s way who is who The animation in the idol‐temple of ‘Ajam
Is of little account. Does not match the great ardour of my heart,
The white palm of a Moses is For with one glance Muhammad of Arabia
Conferred on a black man. Has conquered the Hijaz that is in me.
Sometimes kingship is not bestowed What shall I do? The wily intellect
On the son of a king; Has tied me up in knots.
Sometimes it is bestowed upon One glance, I pray. The motion of Your eye
A prisoner in a well. Perhaps will break its fiction’s spell.
A wayside beggar may be turned into The magic tricks of reason do not touch
A conqueror and ruler of the world The fervour of a living heart.
By having granted to his eyes Forsake the temple of philosophy,
The cutting power of a sword. And come into the sanctum of my heart.
Love has been overthrown by reason, and Ÿ
The world is upside down. Do not be like a mirror, which is taken up
It may be that I shall With others’ beauty. Cast
Be given freedom to wail over this. Away the thought
Ÿ Of others from your mind.
You cannot fit into the Harem, nor Acquire fire from the singing of
Into the idol‐house. The Harem birds, and burn away
But O how eagerly You come The nest that you have built
To those who seek You eagerly. In other people’s tree.

In this world learn How well an ill‐starred man
To unfurl your own wings, Has mastered alchemy.
For you can never fly
Come and join Iqbal’s company,
With others’ wings.
And share a drink or two with him.
I am an independent man Although he does not shave his head,
And am so self‐respecting too He knows qalandar’s ways.
That you could kill me with a glass Ÿ
Of water that belonged to someone else.
There is no master who does not
O You, closer to my soul than all else, Adore Him like a slave.
Yet hidden from my sight, There is no slave who, if he were
Your separation from me is A master, would not bid for Him.
Dearer to me than union with all others.
Although the preacher talks a lot
Ÿ
Concerning Moses and Sinai,
No lordship and no mastership The mirror of his talk does not reflect
Does the world of Love know. The light of that theophany.
It is enough
Our guide thinks it expedient
That it knows how to serve.
To speak in metaphors;
Not everyone who walks around an idol But otherwise he has nothing to do
And ties the sacred thread around his neck With fair‐faced ones.
Can claim to know the rules
Attach your heart to Him and shun
Of idol‐worship and of unbelief.
These wearers of patched clothes.
There are a thousand Khybers here, Do not become the quarry of gazelles
A hundred kinds of dragons too. Which do not come from His own Tartary.
Not everyone who lives on barley bread
You want a melody of peace
Can know a Hyder’s ways.
Played on my lute.
Better than Alexander in How am I to extract from it a tone
The eyes of the wise is a man, That is not in its strings?
Be he a beggar, who knows what
My heart applied the qashqa to the brow,
The end of Alexanderism is.
And took to Brahmins’ ways;
What is there in the blandishments But did so in a manner which
Of fair‐faced youth? Did not befit its sacred thread.
Come, join the circle of an old man who
Love speaks out in the company
Knows how to conquer hearts.
That it finds in the tavern.
The West makes glass, In idol‐house and in Harem.
And fashions jars and cups. It finds no confidant.
I am surprised it thinks the glass itself Ÿ
To be “the fairy in the glass”.
Come, for the love‐mad nightingale
What can I say about a Muslim who Is busy singing songs.
Is not a Muslim in his ways, The tulip‐bride
Save this that, though a scion of Abraham, Is all bewitchery and grace.
He follows Azar’s way of life.
O connoisseur of music, melody
Come into my abode of woes Comes forth from strings invisible,
Just for a while and see Not from the singer’s throat,

Nor from the frets of lute or harp. Ÿ
Whoever strikes the strings O may Arabia become a tulip‐field,
Of life’s lute with a plectrum is, Thanks to my tears of blood.
Take it from me, May Ajam, which has lost its fragrance, find
A man who knows the mysteries. A new spring in my breath.
I have been given knowledge of Life is all restlessness,
What is behind veils in the world; And restlessness eternal.
But dare not open my mouth, for May every atom of my dust
The heavens are so perverse. Become a restless heart.
Do not speak harshly, try It does not stick to any path;
The way of amity. It knows no halting‐place.
That you and I are here together is Such is my heart, my traveler.
A pure godsend. May God be with it always.
What is the destination of Beware of reason, which creates
This dark abode of dust? Mere images of hopelessness.
Whatever there is in it is It charms us with false instruments.
Like shifting sand. May their strings snap.
My body is a flower from You are a youth as yet half‐baked,
A flower‐bed in Kashmir’s paradise. And my verse is all heat.
My heart is from the sanctum of Hijaz. O may the ghazals I sing prove
My song is from Shiraz. Agreeable to you.
Ÿ In my heart, if you enter it,
You will find no desire but that
We are mere dust, but planet‐like
The dew that is you may become
We swiftly move,
A boundless sea.
And seek the shore
Of this blue sea. May it not be your spirit’s fate
That it should find a moment’s rest.
We owe our being to
O may the restlessness of life
A single flame of life;
Be evidenced to you.
But, from the joy of selfhood, we
Are split up as so many sparks. Ÿ
O tell the creatures of light this: Your seeing is all error,
That by dint of the intellect Your wisdom all defect.
We creatures of dust ride You never will get anywhere
The stars. Except through revelation.
In love we are The path is blind.
Buds shaking in the morning breeze; Dive into yourself, traveler.
But in the business of life we Fish never lose their way
Are quite as hard as granite. Deep in the sea.
Like the narcissus we A self‐respecting man
Have grown eyes in this garden. Does not go with his needs to kings.
O lift the veil that hides Your face; A mountain cannot stoop
We are all eyes for You. To be a leaf of grass.

Do not pass by my song, Do not sit down on seeking’s road
For in it you will find On this pretext
The secret of ascetic living and That in our age
The treasured wealth of royalty. There is no one who knows the path.
My breath will do to you How unconcerned you are
What morning breezes do to buds, About your time!
If you know how delectable Learn of a time incalculable
Are morning sighs. In terms of months and years.
O heavens, your eyes have still In this old inn
A pitiless, foreboding look. You look for peace!
I fear that you intend to stage It seems that you do not know of
One more grim show. The struggle for existence.
Ÿ What can the angel‐scribes
There is no breaker of wine‐jars Record about our sins?
Not merrily drunk with Your wine. For our lot in Your world
There is no sweet‐tongued poet who Was nothing but spectatorship.
Has not sucked rapture at Your ruby‐tinted Come, let us catch hold of
lips. The skirt of Iqbal’s robe,
In Arab dress you are For he is not one of those men who go about
Most pleasing to the eyes, In patched‐up dresses at saints’ shrines.
But there is no dress which Ÿ
Does not suit you.
My love in its abandon has
Your lips are silent, but A live flame in its arms.
Your eyes are not. My sterile wisdom cannot raise
O there is not a thing that they A single spark.
Do not say to my bleeding heart.
Love’s meekness, when complete,
I hold poetic gatherings Is one with Beauty’s pride.
Only to sing of You, for otherwise So in my desert Qais
There is no gathering that I cannot Is given Layla’s name.
Conjure up in my solitude.
From India have I come with an urge
O Muslim, learn again To prostrate myself on your threshold—
How to work miracles like Solomon. An urge which has
There is no Ahriman Turned to blood in my brow.
Who does not have an eye upon your ring.
Put into this old unbeliever’s hand
Ÿ The sword of la,
Although he does not wear And then see how the tumult of
A crown or diadem, My Illa rages in the world.
The beggar in Your street There ought to be a revolution for
Is no less than a king. The heavens to bring again
The young are sleeping, while Out of time’s womb my yesterdays
The old are dead of heart. In my tomorrow’s guise.
There is nobody in whose lot The whole world benefits
Are morning sighs. From Your abounding grace,

But You do not grant my Sinai It is not strange that you have the Messiah’s
Any theophany at all. healing touch:
What is strange is your patient is the more sick
In veiled terms do I say to God,
for your cure.
But to you, Prophet of God, openly,
Though you have gathered knowledge,
That He is all that is concealed from me,
you have thrown away the heart;
And you all that is manifest.
With what a precious treasure you have
Ÿ
thought it fit to part!
O you have carved new images, The courting of philosophy is a vain quest,
Alas! indeed;
You have not dug into your inner self,
For in its school Love’s lofty regimen is not
Alas! decreed.
You have been melted so Such are its blandishments, it leads astray the
By the heat of the West pupil’s heart:
That you have dropped from your own eyes There is no mischief its coquettish glances do
Just like a tear. Alas! not breed.
But its cold fire can never set the seeker’s
In a street where mere common dust
heart aflame:
Gains preciousness
It cannot give the heart Love’s sweet pain,
You did not prove that you were even worth
though it makes it bleed.
An amorous half‐glance. Alas!
Though it has roamed the deserts, it has
I take it that you have read through captured no gazelle;
The book of wisdom, but Though it has searched the garden, it has not a
You have not understood rose for meed.
The meaning of Love’s narrative. Alas! The wisest thing that we can do is to
appeal to Love;
You went around the Ka‘bah, and
For our desires’ fulfilment we should
You went around the idol‐house.
always kneel to Love.
But you did not engage
Your vision with yourself. Alas! Wisdom, since it set foot on life’s labyrinthine
way,
Has set the sea on fire and made the whole
world go awry.
A PICTURE OF EUROPE Its alchemy converted worthless grains of
A MESSAGE TO THE WEST sand to gold;
But oh! it gave the wounded heart no love‐
O morning breeze, convey this to the Western balm to apply.
sage from me: Alas! we were so foolish as to let it steal our
With wings unfolded, Wisdom is a captive all wits:
the more. It waylaid us, subjecting us to highway
It tames the lightning, but Love lets it strike robbery.
its very heart: It raised up much dust from the civilization of
In courage Love excels that clever sorcerer by the West
far. To cast into that civilization’s Holy Saviour’s
The eye sees just the colour of the tulip and eye.
the rose; O how long can you go on sowing sparks
But far more obvious, could we see it, is the and reaping flames,
flower’s core.

And tying up your heart in knots which Preferring war to peace, it reared up armies
bear new‐fangled names? everywhere,
Which plunged their swords into the hearts of
The self‐absorbed and world‐regarding
their own kith and kin.
wisdom are two things.
It gave the name of empire to its acts of
The nightingale and falcon have two different
banditry;
kinds of wings.
And heavy sat its yoke on those who lived in
It is one thing to pick up stray grain lying on
its domain.
the ground;
Now, holding in its hand a goblet full of
Another to peck at gems in the Pleiades’
human blood,
earrings.
It dances madly to the tune of flute and
It is one thing to roam the garden like the
tambourine.
morning breeze;
It is high time that we washed clean the
Another to delve in the rose’s inmost
tablet of our heart:
ponderings.
It is high time that with a clean slate we
It is one thing to let doubt and conjecture bog
made a fresh start.
you down;
Another to look up and see celestial The royal crown has passed into the hands of
happenings. highwaymen.
Blest is the Wisdom which has both the Hushed is the song of Darius; mute is
worlds in its domain, Alexander’s flute.
Which calls man’s heart’s fire as well as Farhad has changed his pickaxe for the
the angels’ light its own. sceptre of Parvez.
Gone are the joy of mastership, the toil of
We, since we issued forth out of the sacred
servitude.
shrine of Love,
Freed from his bondage, Joseph sits on
Have burnished mirror‐bright the very dust
Pharaoh’s high throne:
beneath our feet.
The tales and wiles of Potiphar’s wife cannot
O look at our adventurousness in the game of
win her suit.
life;
Old secrets that were veiled stand unveiled in
For we have robbed the wealth of both the
the market‐place:
worlds and boldly staked it.
No longer are they subjects of debate for the
We watch the day‐and‐night procession move
elite.
before our eyes,
Unveil your eyes and you will see that in
With our tents pitched right on the margin of
full view of you
a running streamlet.
Life is creating for itself a world
Once in our heart, which launched a night‐
completely new.
raid on this ancient fane,
There was a fire which we breathed into all In this our ancient dust I find the pure gold of
things, dry or wet. the soul:
We were a flame; we flickered, broke Each atom of it is a star’s eye with the power
down and became a spark: to see.
And since then we burn fitfully, with In every grain of sand lodged in the womb of
yearnings vague and dark. mother earth
I see the promise of a many‐branched fruit‐
Love learned the greedy ways of earthly lust
laden tree.
and burst all bounds:
I fnd the mountain as light as a tiny blade of
It caught men in its toils as fish are caught by
grass,
fishermen.

And heavy as a mountain seems a blade of It thought the tulip was branded with the
grass to me. blood of innocents;
A revolution too big for the universe’s mind In the closed bud it saw the guile of Spring.
I see, I know not how: I see it just about to be. From the cries of burning woe a hoopoe’s
O happy he who sees the horseman, not heart caught fire.
the dust alone, The hoopoe with his beak drew forth the
Who in the throbbing of the strings sees thorn from its body.
music’s essence drawn. Saying, “Get the profit out of loss:
The rose has created pure gold by rending her
Life is, and as long as it lasts, will be a
breast.
running stream:
If thou art wounded, make the pain thy
This old wine’s youthful effervescense will
remedy.
always be new.
Accustom thyself to thorns, that thou mayst
What has been but should not have been will
become entirely one with the garden.
not be any more:
What should have been but has not been will [Translated by R.A. Nicholson]
be— it must be so.
Love is all eyes for Beauty’s revelations yet to
PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS
be: Philosopher with statesman weigh not thou:
And Beauty, fond of self‐display, must always Those are sun‐blinded, these are tearless eyes.
be on view: One shapes a false argument for his truth,
Deep in the earth that I have watered with my The other a block of logic for his lies.
blood‐stained tears
My teardrops will remain embedded, gems of
a rich hue. AN ASSEMBLAGE IN THE OTHER WORLD
“I see in the dark night a portent of the
coming dawn. TOLSTOY
My candle has been put out, but to greet Ahriman’s hirelings,
the rising sun.” Warriors of kings,
Draw oppression’s sword
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS For a loaf of bread.
To the end that wars may cease on this old Evil is their good,
planet, And the husk their food.
The suffering peoples of the world have Friends of others, these
founded a new institution. Are their own kin’s foes.
So far as I see it amounts to this: Country, church and crown
A number of undertakers have formed a Are narcotics grown
company to allot the graves. By the masters to
Buy their slaves’ souls with.
KARL MARX
SCHOPENHAUER AND NIETZSCHE
For all his wisdom, man is not yet self‐
A bird flew from its nest and ranged about aware,
the garden; And capitalism has rendered man man’s
Its soft breast was pierced by a rose‐thorn. murderer.
It reviled the nature of Time’s garden;
It throbbed with its own pain and pain of HEGEL
others. Reality is double‐faced.
The orchard and the desert are

Two aspects of it that one sees. NIETZSCHE
To know the whole truth one must taste
Both grapes and bitter gourds. The heart of the philosopher
So fond is Nature of antitheses Bled at man’s sinews laxity
That it has set at war So his thought fashioned a new cast of man.
Employees and employers, slaves and lords. He raised a fresh storm in the West—
It was as if a lunatic
TOLSTOY Had crashed into a glassware factory.
The two‐faced intellect with its philosophy
EINSTEIN
Of egotism bids the worker suffer patiently.
Like Moses he sought a theophany
MAZDAK Until his mind, in quest of light,
Iran’s seed sprouts forth from the soil Unveiled its mystery.
Of the empires of the Kaisers and the Czars. A moment’s flight from heaven’s height
Death dances a new dance in kings’ and rich To the observer’s eye—
men’s palaces. Such is the unimaginable speed
For ages does an Abraham burn in a Of its fast‐beating wings, indeed.
Nimrod’s fire Sequestered, it lies at the core
Before he can cast out old idols from Of black coal in a pit.
The sanctuary of his Lord. When manifest in its full glory, it
Gone is the age of Parvez, wake up now, Burns up like straw a bush on Mount Sinai.
O victims of his tyranny. Unchanging in this magic world of more
Wrest back from him Or less, of high and low,
The good things he deprived you of. Of far and near, of to and fro,
Its make‐up has in it two sets
KOHKAN
Of qualities, engaged in mutual strife,
Though outwardly so simple and so shy, Like brightness, darkness, soothing, burning,
My loved one is a tyrant, sly life
And full of mischief and deceit. And death, one of which sets begets
She looks all amity, The angels and the houris, while
But is a fighter in reality. The other shows in Ahriman the vile.
Like Christ’s her tongue is sweet: What can I say about this subtle‐minded sage
Her heart is hard like that of Genghis Khan, Except that from
That cruel man. The race of Moses and of Aaron there has
My intellect has broken down: come
My madness will soon reach its crown; A Zarathustra in our age?
My vision has dissolved in tears.
Appear to me: I pine for you.
My pickaxe has laid low a hill BYRON
At your command; but still
Flames would spring up,
The world appears
Just as rose and tulip do,
To favour Parvez, as you do.
From the garden’s soil,
From earth to sky all things seem running in
If you poured a drop or two
a race.
On it from his cup,
The caravan moves fast: make haste,
Always on the boil.
increase your pace.
England’s chilly climate
Did not suit his spirit.
His heart’s message’s great ardour

Set aflame love’s messenger. From whose words meanings grow
What a fairyland of beauty spontaneously
Was created by his fancy! Like tulips riotously breaking out.
Seeing his epiphanies, “You sleep,” said he. “Awake, awake. To ply
Youth goes into ecstasies. A boat in a mirage is folly’s height.
But his genius, that high‐soaring bird, You’re bidding wisdom guide you on love’s
Left its nest to fall into a snare, path!
Which it preferred You’re looking for the sun by candle‐light!”
To soaring in the air.
PETÖFI

(A young poet of Hungary who died in battle
NIETZSCHE defending his country and no earthly memorial of
whom exists, as his body could not be found)
If song thou crave, flee form him!
Thunder roars in the reed of his pen. In this garden, for just one moment,
He plunged a lancet into Europe’s heart; You sang of the bride‐like rose,
His hand is red with the blood of the Cross. You increased the sorrow of some hearts,
He reared a pagoda on the ruins of the And dispelled the sorrow of others.
Temple: You painted the tulip’s palm with y our
His heart is a true believer, but his brain an blood;
infidel. And opened the bud’s heart with your sighs
Burn thyself in the fire of that Nimrod, at dawn.
For the garden of Abraham is produced from You are lost in your song ‐because your verse
fire. is your tomb:
You did not return to earth because you were
not of earth.
JALAL AND HEGEL [Translated by Mustansir Mir]
One night I was engaged in teasing out
DIALOGUE BETWEEN AUGUSTE COMTE
The knots of Hegel’s philosophic thought,
Which tore the veil of transient, finite things, AND THE LABOURER
Laying bare the infinite, the absolute,
COMTE
And whose conception’s grand, imposing
All men are one another’s limbs,
range
The leaves and stems
Made the world shrink into a tiny mote.
Of one big tree.
When I plunged into that tempestuous sea,
If man’s brain is the seat
My mind became just like a storm‐tossed
Of intellect and if his feet
boat.
Trail on the ground,
But soon a spell lulled me to slumber and
This is because they both are bound
Shut out the finite and the infinite.
By Nature’s ineluctable decree.
My inner vision sharpened, I observed
One man commands, another works, both
An old man whose face was a godly sight—
born
The man whose spirit’s glory, like the sun,
To it. A Mahmud cannot do
Has made the sky of Rum and Syria bright;
The work of an Ayaz.
Whose flame in this benighted wilderness
Do you not see it is because
Shines like a path‐illuminating light;
Work is divided between you

That life becomes a garden, with both rose Where is a poet of such stature!—
and thorn? Though not a prophet, he is possessed of
scripture!
THE LABOURER To the one who knew divine secrets
Philosopher, you cheat me when you say He read about the pact of Iblis and the doctor.
That I can never break my way Rumi said, ‘You who bring words to life,
Out of this magic circle that you weave. And hunt angels ‐and God—
You pass base brass for gold, Your thought has made its home
And teach me to resign myself to fate. In the inner recesses of the heart,
With my pickaxe I excavate And created this old world anew.
Long waterways, in which I hold At one and the same time in the body’s frame,
The very ocean prisoner, and retrieve You have seen the tranquillity and the
Milk and honey from Nature’s stores. restlessness of the soul,
Purveyor of strange subtleties, You have been a witness to the birth of the
You give poor Kohkan’s prize, for all pearl in the shell.
his sores, Not everyone knows the secret of love;
To the idle, rich and sly Parvez. Or is fit to reach these portals.
Do not try passing wrong for right ‘He who is blest, and a confidant, knows
With your philosophy. That cunning comes from Iblis and love from
You cannot dupe a Khizr’s sight Adam.’
With a mirage’s trickery.
The capitalist, with nothing to do but [Translated by Mustansir Mir]
Eat and sleep, is a burden on this BERGSON’S MESSAGE
earth,
Which thrives because of those who If thou wouldst read Life as an open book,
work on it. Be not a spark divided from the brand.
Do you not know this idler is a thief Being the familiar eye, the friendly look,
by birth? Nor visit strange‐like thy native land.
The crime that he exists you want O thou by vain imaginings befooled,
excused. Get thee a reason which the Heart hath
With all your wisdom you have been schooled!
bemused. [Translated by R.A. Nicholson]
HEGEL THE WINE‐SHOP OF THE WEST
His thought is fully rational I well recall the days
And unrelated to the sensuous, That I spent in the Wine‐Shop of the West.
Although his ideas Its wine‐bowls shine
Are decked out in the garb of brides. Like Alexander’s looking‐glass.
Do you know what kind of a bird Its saki’s eyes are as
Is his high‐soaring thought? Intoxicating as its wine,
It is a hen which through excess of heat And every glance of theirs conveys
Conceives without a mate. A message to some drinker’s breast.
[Translated by M. Hadi Husain] But O it has no Moses to
Experience epiphanies,
JALAL AND GOETHE No Abraham to undergo
In paradise that perceptive German Ordeals by fire.
Happened upon the Master of the East. There Intellect with careless ease

Robs Love of its entire KANT
Possessions, and there is no heat By nature it had a taste
In its air of a fervent sigh. For wine that is like crystal:
No one is so intoxicated by It is from eternity’s sleeping‐chamber
Its wine as to sway on his feet. That it brings its shining, star‐like cup.
DIALOGUE BETWEEN LENIN AND KAISER BERGSON
WILHELM It did not bring either wine
Or a cup from eternity:
LENIN The tulip gets its eternal passion
It is long since in this old world poor man From the scar in its own heart.
Is being ground like grain between
millstones.
He has been duped by Kaisers and by Czars, POETS
And has been caught in the snare of the
Church. BROWNING
Have you not seen the hungry slave at last There was nothing to fortify life’s
Tear to shreds his lord’s garment, dyed red effervescent wine:
with I took some aqua vitae from Khizr and
His blood? Democracy’s spark has burnt up added it.
The robes of the Church elders and the
kings. BYRON
Why should one be obliged to Khizr for his
THE KAISER aqua’s loan?
Why blame idols for their winsome ways? I poured a little of my heart’s blood into the
It is in the Brahmin’s nature to adore. wine‐cup.
He keeps fashioning new idols; for
He gets bored stiff with the ones he has. GHALIB
Do not tell me of the highwaymen: To make the wine still bitterer and my chest
His own robber is the traveler here. still more sore,
If you crown the common people, then I melted the glass itself and added it to my
You will find oppression is still there. wine.
Never does greed die out of men’s hearts:
RUMI
In a furnace fire must always blaze.
How can dilutions be as good as the real
Power’s sorceress has the same arts
stuff itself?
Irrespective of the part she plays.
I pressed wine out of grapes direct and filled
“Shirin’s beauty never goes abegging:
my cup with it.
Khusroes or Farhads are never lacking.”
[Translated by M. Hadi Husain] THE TAVERN OF THE WEST
Last night, while I was in the tavern of the
PHILOSOPHERS
West,
LOCKE I was delighted by a witty thing a drinker
It was dawn that lit up the tulip’s cup said.
With a drink from the sun; “This place is not a church,” said he, “that you
For the tulip itself bore an empty cup should find
When it joined the company of flowers. Here pretty girls and organ music and sweet
songs.
This is the tavern of the West, where wine

Has the effect of making things that are Yours Eden with its Sidrah and its Tuba.
considered bad seem good, Strong liquor with a hangover is mine,
We have weighed good and evil on another For you drink comes from Adam and Eve’s
kind of scales. brewery.
The scales of the Jews and the Christians were Duck, pheasant, pigeon are my birds: huma
askew. And anqa are your royal property.
What is good in you will be bad, if you should The earth and what is in its bowels are mine;
break your fist. From earth to heaven all is your territory.
What is bad in you will be good, if you
increase your might.
THE LABOURER’S SONG
If you look carefully, you will find life is all The hard work of the cotton‐wearing labourer
hypocrisy. Provides the idle rich with their silk robes.
Whoever follows the path of truth and The gem in the employer’s ring is made up of
sincerity, my sweat.
Just ceases to exist. The rubies in his horse’s reins are my child’s
Claims of truth and sincerity tears.
Are only covers for hypocrisy. The Church is fat through sucking my blood
Our master says that brass must have on it a like a leech.
silver plate. My arm’s strength forms the sinews of the
I have revealed to you the secret of success in state.
life. My morning tears make gardens of waste
Let no one know of it, if you care for success. lands.
My heart’s blood glistens in the tulip and the
A WORD TO ENGLAND
rose.
An Easterner tasted once the wine in Europe’s Come, time’s harp is tense with new
glass; melodies.
No wonder if he broke old vows in reckless Come, pour out strong wine that will melt the
glee. very glass.
The blood came surging up in the veins of his Let us give a new order to the tavern and the
new‐born thought: taverner,
Predestination’s bondslave he learned that And let us raze all ancient taverns to the
Man is free. ground.
Let not thy soul be vexed with the drunkards’ Let us avenge the tulip’s blood on those who
noise and rout! laid the garden waste.
O saki, tell me fairly, who was’t that broached For rose and rosebud’s gatherings let us
this jar? establish a new style.
The scent of the rose showed first the way How long shall we exist like moths that flit
into the garden; round candle flames?
Else, how should the nightingale have known How long shall we exist forgetful of ourselves
that roses are? like this?
[Translated by R.A. Nicholson] [Translated by M. Hadi Husain]
DIVISION BETWEEN THE CAPITALIST AND THE FREEDOM OF THE SEA
THE LABOURER A duck said, ‘The lanes of the sea are now
Mine is the din of the steel factory, free! –
And yours is the church organ’s melody. The edict from the court of Khizr says so!’
Mine is the bush that pays the king a tax, A crocodile said, ‘Go anywhere you like,

But never forget to watch out for us!’ My heart still wants
That I should go on seeking, though I have set
foot
On a path thinner than a hair.
TRIFLES
Ÿ
Agony in every atom of our being, Ÿ
Every breath of us a rising from the dead. Sweet is the time of Spring, the red Rose cried;
To Sikandar lost amidst the Land of Darkness, Sweeter an hour here than an age outside;
“Hard is Death, but Life is harder,” Khizr Before some lover plucks you for his cap,
said. Sweetest to die in this green garden’s lap.
[Translated by R.A. Nicholson] [Translated by V.G. Kiernan]
Ÿ Ÿ
The pearl is used to the ways of the sea. The poet is child, youth and old man all in
What can it know about the millstone that one
grind grain? Distinctions of age are unknown to poetry.
Ÿ Ÿ
The reed‐pen, being hollow, makes a noise; Three things make your vision better:
The pencil, being solid lead, makes none. Greenery, running water and fair faces.
Ÿ Three things tend to make you fatter:
I am one who has walked around Silk robes, good smells and a carefree heart.
The Harem with an idol under my arms.
I am one who has shouted Allah’s name
When idols were in front of me.
Ÿ When at the sight of a burst bubble he turns
Of Life, O brother, I give thee a token to hold pale?
and keep; Ÿ
Sleep is a lighter death, and Death a heavier
In this world either be a hill‐stream, which
sleep.
Observes heights and depressions in its
[Translated by R.A. Nicholson] course,
Ÿ Or be a headlong flood, which just ignores
Heights and depressions as it rushes on.
If you do not possess
Ÿ
The power to forgive,
Go, get to grips with those O you who plucked a rose,
Who have wronged you. Do not complain about the thorn,
Do not nurse hatred in your heart. For like the rose the thorn is born
O do not make your honey sour Of the spring breeze.
By mixing vinegar with it. Ÿ
Ÿ
Do not apply a hair‐dye to
Do not speak to me of his sensitive, fine mind, Your eyebrows and your beard,
Our poet’s crystal breaks at a mere breath of For you cannot get back your youth
wind. By stealing years from time.
Of life’s grim war how can he ever tell the
tale,

Ÿ Ÿ
Love has no use for those who do not dare. How nice a thing it were
To catch dead birds an eagle does not care. If every traveller
Ÿ Who wants to travel far and fast
Could go free from the trammels of the past.
The poet’s product is not saleable. If blind conformity were good,
The silver of a white rose will not buy you The Prophet himself would
bread. Have gone the way
Of Arabs in an earlier day.

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A MESSAGE FROM THE EAST

AUTHOR’S PREFACE From early youth Goethe’s versatile mind

Regarded from a purely literary standpoint, trouble of doing this, the publication of this

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