This is the Masnavi, the roots of the main tenets of theology regarding

the unveiling of the secrets of certain knowledge and union. It is the

greatest creed and the most luminous of holy laws, as well as the most
manifest of proofs of GodHis light is like a niche in which there is a
lamp* that shines more brightly than the dawn. This books the paradise
of hearts with boughs and springs, one known as Salsabil* by travellers
on this path; to those with mystic stations who know miracles it is the
very best of stations and of resting places.* The godly here both eat and
drink; the free feel joy and mirth through it. It is, like Egypts Nile, a wine
for patient worshippers, but an affliction for all Pharaohs people and
those who dont believeas He has said: Many He leads astray by it,
while many others God will guide with it.* It is the cure for breasts, the
purge of sorrows, the Korans unveiler, and a vast profusion of Mans
sustenance and purest qualities. And it was written by the hands of noble,
pious scribes,* who in this way ordain that none shall touch it but the
purified, a revelation from the Lord of both the worlds!* Falsehood does
not approach it from the front or from behind;* God watches it and
oversees it too: He is the best of guards and the most merciful of all.* And
it has other titles given to it by the Lord. Weve just provided this brief
summarya token which points to much more: a mouthful tells of a
whole pool, a handful indicates a threshing-floor of wheat. This slave in
need of mercy from the Lord, Mohammad Ebn Mohammad Ebn Hosayn
from Balkh, may God accept him, says: Ive striven in composing this long
work of rhyming couplets which comprises wonders, rarities, enlightened
sayings, pearls of guidance, the path of the ascetics, and the garden of
the pietistsconcise in form but rich in terms of meaningto answer the
request of my chief and support, the location of the spirit in my body and
my provision for today and for tomorrow, chief and exemplar for the
mystics, leader to certainty and guidance, helper of mankind, trustee of
hearts and intellects, who was established by the Lord among His
creatures, His choice among created beings, the aim of the injunctions
given to the Prophet and the secrets shared with just His chosen one, the
key to all the treasures of the empyrean, trustee of treasures in this world
too: thats Abul-Fazael Hosamol-Haqq-waddin, named Hasan Ebn
Mohammad Ebn Hasan Akhi Tork, the Abu Yazid of his time, Jonayd of this
age, veracious like his father and his grandfather, may God be pleased
with him and them.* Originating from Orumiya, from the lineage of that
noble shaikh who said, Last night I was a Kurd, but now Ive woken up an
Arab!* God bless his soul and those of his successors too. How blest the
ancestor as well as the successor! His is a lineage on which the sun has
cast its mantle and before which stars have shone down their bright
beams. Their courtyard has not ceased to be the qebla* of good fortune,
towards which sons of saints all face hopes Kaaba which is
circumambulated by those whose aim is the obliterated ones. May it not
cease to serve this way, so long as one star rises and the sun appears on
the horizon, as a refuge for those with insight, the divine, the holy and
the spiritual, enlightened and celestial onesthe silent observers, absent
and present ones;* the kings in rags, the notables of all the races, those
with many virtues, the guiding lights. Amen, Lord of the worlds! This is a

prayer that will not be turned down, for its a prayer for every kind of
creature. Praise be to God, who is One, and blessings on our chief
Mohammad and his family. God suffices for us; He is a generous protector

SONG OF THE REED

1. Now listen to this reed-flute's deep lament

About the heartache being apart has meant:
2. 'Since from the reed-bed they uprooted me
My song's expressed each human's agony,
3. A breast which separation's split in two
Is what I seek, to share this pain with you:
4. When kept from their true origin, all yearn
For union on the day they can return.
5. Among the crowd, alone I mourn my fate,
With good and bad I've learned to integrate,
6. That we were friends each one was satisfied
But none sought out my secrets from inside;
7. My deepest seecret's in this song I wail
But eyes and ears can't penetrate the veil:
8. Body and soul are joined to form one whole
But no one is allowed to see the soul.'
9. It's fire not just hot air the reed-flute's cry,
If you don't have this fire then you should die!
10. Love's fire is what makes every reed-flute pine,
Love's fervour thus lends potency to wine;
11. The reed consoles those forced to be apart,
Its notes will lift the veil upon your heart,
12. Where's antidote or poison like its song,
Or confidant, or one who's pined so long?
13. This reed relates a tortuous path ahead,
Recalls the love with which Majnun's heart bled:
14. The few who hear the truths the reed has sung
Have lost their wits so they can speak this tongue.
15. The day is wasted if it's spent in grief,
Consumed by burning aches without relief-16. Good times have long passed, but we couldn't care
When you're with us, our friend beyond compare!
17. While ordinary men on drops can thrive
A fish needs oceans daily to survive:

18. The way the ripe must feel the raw can't tell,
My speech must be concise, and so farewell!
--Translated by Jawid Mojaddedi. From "Rumi: The Masnavi,
Book One," New York: Oxford University Press, 2004

Ghazal from Diwan of Hafiz

Translated By Gertrude Bell
Poem in Farsi
OH Cup-bearer, set my glass afire
With the light of wine! oh minstrel, sing:
The world fulfilleth my heart's desire!
Reflected within the goblet's ring
I see the glow of my Love's red cheek,
And scant of wit, ye who fail to seek
The pleasures that wine alone can bring!
Let not the blandishments be checked
That slender beauties lavish on me,
Until in the grace of the cypress decked,
Love shall come like a ruddy pine-tree
He cannot perish whose heart doth hold
The life love breathes - though my days are told,
In the Book of the World lives my constancy.
But when the Day of Reckoning is here,
I fancy little will be the gain
That accrues to the Sheikh for his lawful cheer,
Or to me for the drought forbidden I drain.
The drunken eyes of my comrades shine,
And I too, stretching my hand to the wine,
On the neck of drunkenness loosen the rein.
Oh wind, if thou passest the garden close
Of my heart's dear master, carry for me
The message I send to him, wind that blows!
"Why hast thou thrust from thy memory
My hapless name?" breathe low in his ear;
"Knowest thou not that the day is near
When nor thou nor any shall think on me?"
If with tears, oh Hafiz, thine eyes are wet,
Scatter them round thee like grain, and snare
The Bird of joy when it comes to thy net.
As the tulip shrinks from the cold night air,
So shrank my heart and quailed in the shade;

Oh Song-bird Fortune, the toils are laid,

When shall thy bright wings lie pinioned there?
The heavens' green sea and the bark therein,
The slender bark of the crescent moon,
Are lost in thy bounty's radiant noon,
Vizir and pilgrim, Kawameddin!

THE rose has flushed red, the bud has burst,

And drunk with joy is the nightingale
Hail, Sufis! lovers of wine, all hail!
For wine is proclaimed to a world athirst.
Like a rock your repentance seemed to you;
Behold the marvel! of what avail
Was your rock, for a goblet has cleft it in two!
Bring wine for the king and the slave at the gate
Alike for all is the banquet spread,
And drunk and sober are warmed and fed.
When the feast is done and the night grows late,
And the second door of the tavern gapes wide,
The low and. the mighty must bow the head
'Neath the archway of Life, to meet what . . . outside?
Except thy road through affliction pass,
None may reach the halting-station of mirth
God's treaty: Am I not Lord of the earth?
Man sealed with a sigh: Ah yes, alas!
Nor with Is nor Is Not let thy mind contend
Rest assured all perfection of mortal birth
In the great Is Not at the last shall end.
For Assaf's pomp, and the steeds of the wind,
And the speech of birds, down the wind have fled,
And he that was lord of them all is dead;
Of his mastery nothing remains behind.
Shoot not thy feathered arrow astray!

A bow-shot's length through the air it has sped,

And then . . . dropped down in the dusty way.
But to thee, oh Hafiz, to thee, oh Tongue
That speaks through the mouth of the slender reed,
What thanks to thee when thy verses speed
From lip to lip, and the song thou hast sung?
SLEEP on thine eyes, bright as narcissus flowers,
Falls not in vain
And not in vain thy hair's soft radiance showers
Ah, not in vain!
Before the milk upon thy lips was dry,
I said: "Lips where the salt of wit doth lie,
Sweets shall be mingled with thy mockery,
And not in vain!"
Thy mouth the fountain where Life's waters flow,
A dimpled well of tears is set below,
And death lies near to life thy lovers know,
But know in vain!
God send to thee great length of happy days
Lo, not for his own life thy servant prays;
Love's dart in thy bent brows the Archer lays,
Nor shoots in vain.
Art thou with grief afflicted, with the smart
Of absence, and is bitter toil thy part?
Thy lamentations and thy tears, oh Heart,
Are not in vain
Last night the wind from out her village blew,
And wandered all the garden alleys through,
Oh rose, tearing thy bosom's robe in two;
Twas not in vain!
And Hafiz, though thy heart within thee dies,
Hiding love's agony from curious eyes,
Ah, not in vain thy tears, not vain thy sighs,
Not all in vain!

FROM Canaan Joseph shall return, whose face

A little time was hidden: weep no more
Oh, weep no more! in sorrow's dwelling-place
The roses yet shall spring from the bare floor!
And heart bowed down beneath a secret pain
Oh stricken heart! joy shall return again,
Peace to the love-tossed brainoh, weep no more!
Oh, weep no more! for once again Life's Spring
Shall throne her in the meadows green, and o'er
Her head the minstrel of the night shall fling
A canopy of rose leaves, score on score.
The secret of the world thou shalt not learn,
And yet behind the veil Love's fire may burn
Weep'st thou? let hope return and weep no more!
To-day may pass, to-morrow pass, before
The turning wheel give me my heart's desire;
Heaven's self shall change, and turn not evermore
The universal wheel of Fate in ire.
Oh Pilgr'm nearing Mecca's holy fane,
The thorny maghilan wounds thee in vain,
The desert blooms againoh, weep no more!
What though the river of mortality
Round the unstable house of Life doth roar,
Weep not, oh heart, Noah shall pilot thee,
And guide thine ark to the desird shore!
The goal lies far, and perilous is thy road,
Yet every path leads to that same abode
Where thou shalt drop thy loadoh, weep no more!
Mine enemies have persecuted me,
My Love has turned and fled from out my door
God counts our tears and knows our misery;
Ah, weep not! He has heard thy weeping sore.
And chained in poverty and plunged in night,
Oh Hafiz, take thy Koran and recite
Litanies infinite, and weep no more!

SOLITUDE

I went up to the ocean and, addressing a wave, said:

Youre always restless; tell me what is it that troubles you.
You have a million pearls enfolded in your garments skirt,
But do you, like me, have a heart the only pearl thats true ?
It squirmed, retreated from the shore, and uttered not a word.
I went up to the mountain and said, "O huge heap of stone!
Can you not hear the wailing of a heart in agony?
If in your stones there is a gem which is a drop of blood,
Then speak, O speak, to a sad soul that pines for company.
If it had breathed, it breathed no more, and uttered not a word.
I travelled long in upper space, approached the moon, and said:
"O ceaseless wanderer, is there any rest ordained for you?
Your radiance makes the whole world gleam white like a jasmine field.
But is your breast aglow with a live heart whose light shines through?"
She looked round at the starry crops, and uttered not a word.
Transcending sun and moon, I went up to the Throne of God.
"Theres not a thing," I said, "I can be friends with, not a thing.
Your world is heartless, while my dust is all of hearts stuff made.
A pretty garden, but not the kind of place to make one sing."
He answered with the smile He wore, and utterd not a word.

THE WISDOM OF THE WEST

The story goes that in Iran
A worthy man,
Intelligent and wise,
Died, suffering great agonies.
Departing with a heart
Full of distress and smart,
He went up to Gods throne
And said: "God I am one
Grieved at the way that I
Was made to die.
Your angel of Death is
Supposed to be a specialist,
And yet he has no expertise,
No knowledge of the new skills that exist
In the fine art of killing. He
Kills, but does it so clumsily.
The world is going rapidly ahead,
But his growth has stopped dead.
The west develops wonderful new skills
In this as in so many other fields.
Fine are the ways it kills,
And great are its skills yields.

It has encompassed even thought with death.

Death is all its philosophies life-breath
It is what all its sciences devise.
Its submarines are crocodiles,
With all theie predatory wiles.
Its bombers rain destruction from the skies.
Its gases so obscure the sky
They blind the suns world-seeing eye.
Its guns deal death so fast
The Angel of Death stands aghast,
Quite out of breath
In coping with this rate of death.
Despatch this old fool to the West
To learn the art of killing fast and best."

THE HOURI AND THE POET

THE HOURI:
You neither relish wine nor even look at me.
Strange that you do not know the ways of amity.
In every song you sing, in every breath you draw,
There is a quest, a pining for things yet to be.
O what a fair world you have fashioned with your song.
It makes me feel as if Heaven were illusory.
THE POET:
With your barbed tongue you waylay simple mortal men;
But mortal thorns give mortal men far sweeter pain.
What can I do ? I cannot stay at rest, for I
Am like the zephyr blowing over hill and plain.
As soon as my gaze comes to iest on a fair face
My heart begins to yearn for a still fairer one.
From spark to star, from star to sun, progressively
Such is my flight. To-stop would be sheer death for me.
When I rise, having quaffed a cup of vernal wine,
I sing a song of yet another spring to he.
I seek the end of that which has no end at all
With ever-hopeful heart and never-wearied eye.
The hearts of lovers die in an eternal Heaven
With no grief, none to share it with, no plaintive cry.

Kal ke liy kar aaj nah khist sharab mein

Yeh sooye zan hai saqi kosar ke baab mein

Hein aaj keyon zalil keh kal tak nah thi pasand
Gustakhi-e-firishta humari janab mein
Jaan keyon nikalny lagti hai tan se dam-e-samaa
Gar woh sada samai hai chanak-o-rubab mein
Ro mein hai rakhsh-e-omar kahan dekheye thamy
Ne hath baag par hai nah paa hai rakab mein
Utna hi mujh ko apni haqeeqat se boad hai
Jitna keh wehm ghair se hon pech-o-taab mein
Asl-e-shohood shahid-o-mashhoor aik hai
Heran hon phir moshahida hai kis hisaab mein
Hai mushtamil namood-e-sor par wajood-e-bohr
Yan kya dhara hai qatra-o-moj-o-habab mein
Sharam ik adaye naz hai apny hi se sahi
Hein kitny be hijab keh hein yon hijab mein
Aaraish-e-jamal se farigh nahin hanooz
Pesh-e-nazar hai aaina daim-e-niqab mein
Hai ghaib ghaib jis ko samjhty hein hum shahood
Hein khawab mein hanooz jo jagy hein khawab mein
Ghalib Nadeem-e-dost se aati hai booye dost
Mashgol-e-haq hon bandgi boo turaab mein