| In both worlds, everywhere are the marks of love; | |
| man himself is a mystery of love. | |
| Love’s secret belongs not to the world of wombs, | |
| not to Shem or Ham, Greece or Syria: | 1160 |
| a star without East and West, a star unsetting | |
| in whose orbit is neither North nor South. | |
| The words I am setting tell his destiny, | |
| their exegesis reaches from earth to heaven. | |
| Death, grave, uprising, judgment are his estates, | 1165 |
| the light and fire of the other world are his works; | |
| himself is Imam, prayer and sanctuary, | |
| himself the Ink, himself the Book and the Pen. | |
| Little by little what is hidden in him becomes visible; | |
| it has no boundaries, its kingdom no frontiers. | 1170 |
| His being gives value to contingent things, | |
| his equilibrium is the touchstone of contingent things. | |
| What shall I declare of his sea without a shore? | |
| All ages and all times are drowned in his heart. | |
| That which is contained within man is the world, | 1175 |
| that which is not contained within the world is man. | |
| Sun and moon are manifest through his self-display; | |
| even Gabriel cannot penetrate his privacy. | |
| Loftier than the heavens is the station of man, | |
| and the beginning of education is respect for man. | 1180 |
| Man alive in heart, do you know what thing life is? | |
| One-seeing love that is contemplating duality: | |
| man and woman are bound one to the other, | |
| they are the fashioners of the creatures of desire. | |
| Woman is the guardian of the fire of life, | 1185 |
| her nature is the tablet of life’s mysteries; | |
| she strikes our fire against her own soul | |
| and it is her substance that makes of the dust a man. | |
| In her heart lurk life’s potentialities, | |
| from her glow and flame life derives stability; | 1190 |
| she is a fire from which the sparks break forth, | |
| body and soul, lacking her glow, cannot take shape. | |
| What worth we possess derives from her values | |
| for we are all images of her fashioning; | |
| if God has bestowed on you a glance aflame | 1195 |
| cleanse yourself, and behold her sanctity. | |
| You from whose faith the present age has taken all fire, | |
| now I will tell you openly the secrets of the veil. | |
| The joy of creation is a fire in the body | |
| and society is lightened by that light, | 1200 |
| and whosoever takes any portion of that fire | |
| watches jealously over his private passion; | |
| all the time he fixes his gaze on his own image | |
| lest his tablet should receive any other image. | |
| Mohammed chose solitude upon Mount Hira | 1205 |
| and for a space saw no other beside himself; | |
| our image was then poured into his heart | |
| and out of his solitude a nation arose. | |
| Though you may be an unbeliever in God, | |
| yet you cannot gainsay the Prophet’s glory. | 1210 |
| Though you possess a soul illumined as Moses, | |
| yet without solitude your thoughts remain barren; | |
| by isolation the imagination becomes more vivid, | |
| more vivid, more questing, more finding. | |
| Science and passion are both stations of life | 1215 |
| both take a share of the impact of events. | |
| Science derives pleasure from verification, | |
| love derives pleasure from creativeness. | |
| Display is very precious to the verifier, | |
| to the creator solitude is very precious. | 1220 |
| The eye of Moses desired to behold Being— | |
| that was all part of the pleasure of verification; | |
| thou shalt not see Me contains many subtleties— | |
| lose yourself a little while in this sea profound. | |
| On all sides life’s traces appear unveiled, | 1225 |
| its fountain wells up in the heart of creation. | |
| Consider the tumult that rages through all horizons; | |
| inflict not on the Creator the trouble of display— | |
| solitude is the protection of every artist, | |
| solitude is the bezel in the artist’s ring. | 1230 |