The heart of the rhapsodic Sun;
The soul of the Vineyard, the Press
That knew every vineyard’s caress:
The host of the Tavern divine—
The Saki, the Cup, and the Wine.
The vision is true,
Allahu, Allahu!
They are garbed in blue,
Allahu, Allahu.
They are drenched with dew,
Allahu, Allahu!
And casting the years from their folds and the shame
From their bosoms, they leap in the circle of flame;
They leap, with a flash of their limbs, to the dance
In the tender caress of the Beautiful’s glance.
For only in rapture the face of Belovéd is seen
Through the mask of the spheres and the veils of existence terrene;
And only the slaves of Devotion and Love have the feet
That dare to approach the enravishing glow of the Screen.
Yea, hither we come as the flame of his rapturous fire,
And to the music of rebec and flute, in the dance, we expire.
III
Yea, Man is as near the Belovéd
As far from the world he may be;
He is full of the beauty of Allah
As he’s void of the Thou and the Me.
Life and the world we abandon
That the Life of the world we may see.
O, come to the assembly of Lovers
In the shade of the Tuba tree.
O, come to the Banquet of Union
And taste of the ecstasy.
O, come to the Tavern where nectar
And wine are a-flow as the sea.
For only the drunken are sober,
And only the fettered are free.
Like the waves of the ocean we rise and we melt into foam
That the Moon’s caravan might carry us back to our home.
Likes the motes in the sun-beam we dance in the dawn’s disarray
That the sun might preserve us awhile from dust and decay;
But the atoms of being, the motes in the Sun of his Love,
Are aflame with desire to be where no night is nor day.
Like a child in the cradle whose mother must rock it to sleep,
We rock to and fro that the child of our heart might be still;
Like the lonely palm, when the whirlwinds over it sweep,
We sigh and we chafe in our chains, and we bow to his will.
Like the bird in the cage who pecks at his sugar and sings,
So we, in the Cage of the world, to quiet our wings.
But the vulgar will say that the dance of the palm ’s to the wind,
And the bird to the sugar is singing—Alas! for the blind!
We come for their sake in the shape of a jar from the Sea;
We are filled with the water that heals; and though sealed, we are free.
Nor Crescent nor Cross we adore;
Nor Budha nor Christ we implore;
Nor Muslem nor Jew we abhor:
We are free.
We are not of Iran or of Ind,
We are not of Arabia or Sind:
We are free.
We are not of the East or the West;
No boundaries exist in our breast:
We are free.
We are not made of dust or of dew;
We are not of the earth or the blue:
We are free.
We are not wrought of fire or of foam;
Nor the sun nor the sea is our home;
Nor the angel our kin nor the gnome:
We are free.
Yea, beyond all the moons and the suns and the stars, in a place
Where no shadow of horizon is, nor of darkness a trace,
Where the Garden of God is a-bloom on Love’s radiant strand,
There is our temple, our home, and our own native land.
Yea, body and soul to the world and the sun do we give,
And in the First Soul—the Soul of Belovéd—eternally live.
IV
Awake, O ye Pilgrims, awake!
O Lovers, arise and prepare!
The drum of departure we hear;
The Driver is come for the fare.
The camels are ready; their bells
Are decking with silver the air.
Awake, O ye Pilgrims, awake!
O Lovers, arise and prepare!
The nightingale sings on the branch
To wake up the blossoms; the creek
Whispers a word to the fern,
Who follows, his favor to seek;
The tulip is begging to go
With the zephyr who kisses her cheek;
The face of the Mist is a-glow,
For Dawn mounts the Minaret to speak:
Open the road is, and safe;
No gates and no sentries are there;
Awake, O ye Pilgrims, awake!
O Lovers, arise and prepare!
Each moment a spirit is sent
With a message of mystery sealed;
Each moment a spirit goes forth
That the mystery might be revealed.
And whenever the Dawn opes his eyes,
A blind one on the wayfare is healed;
Whenever a Lover appears,
The Night drops her star-studded shield;
Whenever a Lover is slain,
Blooms a flower in the world’s barley field.
And always the pangs of departure
Are wrought into torches that flare.
Awake, O ye Pilgrims, awake!
O Lovers, arise and prepare.
Ere the saki was born, ere the vineyard existed,
The cup, bright and brimful, enchanted our eyne;
Ere the tavern was built, we revelled and trysted
With the loved One and drank to his beauty divine.
We drink till we wander away from Self and Desire—
We drink till in drunkenness we, on his bosom, expire.
We have known long ago all the raptures of madness;
All the raptures of burning from childhood we know;
In our soul is the soul of the Mother of gladness;
In our heart is the heart of the Father of woe.
Transported and smitten, we wander with ne’er a complaint;
Our story entrances the sinner, enraptures the saint.
Transported and smitten and drunk, we are thought to be mad;
Self-abandoned, unity-seeking, we’re the puzzle of fools;
For the madman’s madness is varied in art, and the sad
Piety-monger tickles his heart while he drools.
O, mind not the strings of our robe, they were loosed in the revel;—
They snapped when we drank with the saint and danced with the devil.
There is nothing that we would conceal in the seeking;
Our love is the
