ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF FREE MEN
SEEK for a while the company of the ancients, | |
Have a look at the art of free people. | |
Arise and see the work of Aibak and Suri; | |
Open your eyes, if you have the heart to see. | |
They displayed their inner selves before the people, | 5 |
And thus saw themselves through the eyes of others. | |
By raising a structure of stones | |
They captured eternity in a moment. | |
Looking on it makes you mature, | |
And transports you to another world. | 10 |
A symbol leads you to its creator | |
And lets you peep into his innermost heart. | |
A spirit of manly adventure and noble nature | |
Are the two precious jewels in the heart of the stone | |
Don't ask me: Whose prayer-ground is this? | 15 |
O you ignorant! body cannot reveal the experiences of the soul. | |
Woe me! I am hidden from myself, | |
And have not tasted water from the river of life. | |
Woe me! I am uprooted from my native so | |
And have fallen far away from my real position. | 20 |
Stability arises from deep faith, | |
Woe me! the branch of my faith is sapless, | |
I do not possess that power (which is implicit) illallah, | |
My prostration is not befitting this shrine. | |
Just cast a glance on that pure jewel - | 25 |
Look at the Taj in the moonlight. | |
Its marble ripples faster than flowing waters, | |
A moment spent here is more stable than eternity. | |
Love of men has expressed its secret, | |
And perforated the stone by their eyelashes. | 30 |
Love of men is pure and charming like a paradise, | |
It produces songs from brick and stone. | |
Love of men is the criterion of beauty; | |
It unveils beauty and sanctifies it too. | |
His aspirations soar beyond the sky, | 35 |
And go away from this world of quantity. | |
As what he sees cannot be expressed in words, | |
He whisks away veil from his heart. | |
Through love passions are elevated, | |
The worthless gain value through it. | 40 |
Without love life is all a-wailing | |
Its whole affair becomes corrupt and unstable. | |
Love polishes one's common sense, | |
And imparts the quality of mirror to the stone. | |
It gives to the people with enlightened heart, the heart of Sinia, | 45 |
And gives to the men of skill the "white" hand. | |
Beside him, all possibilities and existences are nothing | |
All the world is bitter; it alone is sweet honey. | |
To its fire is due the vigour of our thought | |
To create and to infuse soul is its work. | 50 |
Love suffices men, animals, and insects, | |
"Love alone suffices the two worlds." | |
Love without power is magic, | |
Love with power is prophecy. | |
Love combined both in its manifestations, | 55 |
Love thus created a world out of a world. |