CONTENTS
THE TULIP OF SINAI
The world is under His proud power’s sway
My heart is lit up by an inner flame
Love breathes spring breezes upon garden bowers
Love humbles falcons’ proud, predaceous might
Love paints the tulip’s leaves a vivid red
On very few men is Love’s wealth bestowed
I roam this garden like its flowers’ scent
This world is mere dust and the heart its fruit
"O gardener", said the nightingale one morn
From nothing did this world originate
Love’s music found its instrument in man
The origin and end of this world–these
How long this moth-like fluttering, O heart?
Build yourself with a handful of mere dirt
With water and with earth God, builder-wise
The Brahmin said to God on Judgement Day
O morning star, you came and swiftly fled
Life’s tavern would have lain death-still and dark
O swift-winged bird, with your light weight
What joy it is, O God, to be, just be!
I hear a moth before Creation prayed
O Muslims, I have something to unfold
You go so often to His street, O heart
A stranger to your own identity
One morning in a garden, passing by
To make you understand life’s mystery
Do not tell me about that silly moth
I do not sell the stuff that generates
Do not come to my garden if you have
From being and non-being’s whirlpool free
The garden songsters’ chorus I, for one
A wonderful show, God, is Your world, All
Sikandar said to Khizar aptly: "Dive
The throne of Kaikobad and Jamshid’s crown
If in the handful of dust that is you
Life keeps expressing itself in new ways
When the desire to sing aloud grips me
You ask me what is this heart in your breast
The intellect says He cannot be seen
You only built church, temple, idol-house
I never got attached to this world, this
I offer you a strange, new kind of wine
His wine turned my cup into Jamshid’s cup
To past and present reason is a slave
There is an intellect in every man
You went to Mount Sinai, soliciting
Go and tell this to Gabriel from me
If you seek knowledge, then be of two minds
My eyes are thirsty for a sight of You
Your heart quakes with the fear of death: you pale
You ask how close the link between my soul
A wise man said to me: "All your todays
Why ask of Razi what the Quran means?
I do not say if I exist or not.
Tell the flamboyant poet this from me
I do not know what you regard as fair
Perhaps, O holy one, you do not know
A water-drop, with native lustre, can
This riddle is beyond me–reason is
Do not content yourself with resting on
I am a hidden meaning which defies
Do not speak of thc purpose of this life
Because you cast a wistful eye on it
Perfidious, cold, aloof, and all the time
Love’s wizardry is great: it can take on
Do not be broken-hearted, new-born bud
One day a faded rose spoke thus to me
This world of ours, stretched out infinitely
I join the garden’s songsters, and I am
Do we behold for what it is this vale
You are the sun; I am a planet that
Dearer His image in the inner eye
A dyed-in-the-wool infidel, my brain
His freed slave is the proud, upstanding fir
There are a hundred worlds from star to star
Do not put chains of fate upon your feet
My mind is dazzled by its own strong light
A lute, played by You, I make melody
Our breath is a stray breaker from His sea
Unable to bear Your stark loneliness
Whom do you seek? Why are you so perturbed?
Learn to respect yourself, O childish one
Called whether Tartars, Turks or Afghans, we
There is a world concealed within our breasts
O heart, my heart, O heart within my breast
I cannot say what is foul and what fair
One who has been blessed with no secret grief
Why ask what I am and where I came from?
With all Your glory, You keep Yourself veiled
Forget the goal, be steadfast on the path
Come, O Love, guarded secret of our hearts
If poetry is sad, so let it be
I have no steed to ride upon, nor am
Do you wish to attain the perfect life?
You say that man is made of humble clay
Lions to dauntless hearts appear as sheep
I do not know if I am wine or bowl
You say that we are like birds in a snare
How is desire born in our hearts? How does
When after death I walked in Paradise
This world of our, a sculptors study still
O sun, O restless roamer of the skies
Dig your path with your own pickaxe. It is
The mind, great rover, has no journey’s end
Come drink in Nature’s beauty with your eyes
Nobody knows how Selfhood came to be
Learn from the rosebud how to live. O heart
His radiance is in hill and dale, and flowers
A bud sprang up in the narcissus bed
The World, which has no being of its own
My heart knows soul and body’s mystery
My problem is the rose’s problem too
I know the ways of the wild tulip well
The world is filled with one song of desire
My heart is all afire with one desire
Unceasing restlessness is life for us
O preacher if the Brahmin asks that we
Philosophers break idols in their wrath
Worlds spring like grain from my handful of clay
With Nature my relations are age-old
Winging Eternity’s uncharted space
What is this tumult of thought inside me?
I am proud of my gift, my inner fire
If you know your potentialities
Why sorrow? The heart does not live by breath
So long as you are in my breast, O heart
Convey this to those seekers after God
Do not pass through this garden with eyes closed
All idols that I make resemble me
The new-sprung bud addressed these words to dew
Take earth to be the confidante of Heaven
You are the meaning of God’s fait, "Be"
The earth is mere dust at our tavern’s door
Iskander and his flag and sword are gone
You stole away my heart through my breast’s rent
The world of smell and colour, earth and sky
Although I have no knowledge of the keys
I sang with such fine rapture to the crowd
Iran is young again thanks to my song
Iran’s soul has been kindled by my song
Emitting from my fervent soul a flame
Mine is to wander like the breeze of morn
The mind turns cotton into cloth of gold
I have partaken of the fruit I sought
When my imagination, which culls flowers
Iran is like a boundless sea which teems
Do not say life is merely transitory
Though you deny the Western demi-gods
How long will you remain depressed like this?
Nest there where roses grow and tulips glow
The soul designed the body, love of self-display
I heard a voice from inside a grave say
Do not despair of your handful of dust
Worth knowing is this world of hue and smell
You say that you exist but God does not
I have no roasted fowl on which to dine
My fervour has warmed up the Muslim’s blood
What is abodeless cannot be encaged
With every heart Love plays a different part
You are still tied to colour and to race
The love of self-expression seized my heart
At last from artful reason he has freed
REFLECTIONS
Dialogue between Knowledge and Love
The Hawk’s Advice to his Young One
Song of the Hejazi Camel-Driver
WESTERN THEMES
An A ssemb1age in the Other World
Dialogue between August Comte and the labourer
Dialogue between Lenin and Kaiser Wilhelm
MISCELLANY