1
Your love infused my frozen heart with fire
My conceits turned to ashes on that pyre
I left all sterile learning on the shelf
And danced to the melodies of desire.
2
O Rabab, singing minstrel of the dunes,
Before your melodies my poor heart swoons
You are desire’s spy, whispering sands
The secrets of the heart are in your tunes.
3
The Beloved is my eternal sun
And I, the lover, like a planet run
In orbit round him and when springtime comes
And branches sprout, I am the dancing one.
4
The infidel declared that ‘God is dead’
And yet the sun is nucleating red
Glaring down on denouncers on the roof
Who close their eyes to wonders He has bred.
5
Your silence was replaced by moral tales
So song, replacing piety, prevails
When you without a name shuffle the pack
And toss the coin to predict heads or tails.
6
Why you left me I will never know
I was less than nothing to you and so
More loyal to me than you ever were
Is this longing for you—O let it grow!
7
You accept me and yet I am afraid
This fear is that my allure will fade
Or is it that I know the evil eye
Is in my shadow, lurking in my shade.
8
You won’t even grant me a single glance
I think that’s sinful, but you take the chance
To ignore every heartfelt overture
Will nothing induce you to change your stance?
9
I begged the physician ‘Prescribe a cure!
This is a suffering I can’t endure.’
He asked me where it hurt, I took his hand
And touched it to my ribs where it felt sore.
10
The day I stood outside the tavern door
I cast off all disguises evermore
The passers-by all sought their destinies
Was I alone questing my inner core?
11
I tell the Saki I don’t need her wine
I’m happy in myself as I am mine
When mortals say ‘no future awaits me’
I say ‘to have no future is divine’.
12
This sorrow does not recognize this blight
Itself is blind and thinks I have no sight
We see the stars reflected in the streams
Can anyone venture to steal that light?
13
Lamp of the night I urge you not to sleep
Shine bright O moon and penetrate the deep
Darkness that surrounds all the universe
As crescent or as orb your promise keep.
The night was dark, the moon came out to play
But steeped in darkness all that I could say
Was ‘leave me now I am averse to light.’
And thus we mortals turn fortune away!
14
The flood will drown my poems and my songs
This disguise returns to whom it belongs
So now exposed my sins and sorrows stand
The moonlight will dissolve my rights and wrongs.
15
Love is the power that sets hearts aglow
Its energy can soften rocks and so
Don’t criticise the sins of lovers who
Are captive in its tide of to and fro.
16
My turban, robes and everything I own
Are worth less than the false dirham that’s thrown
Into the dust and into oblivion
No face, no signature, a name unknown.
17
Within a cloud lightning and thunder roll
Only loving eyes see the sunrise whole
His presence is an ocean in my heart
All creation is submerged in his soul.
18
So, pluck these strings, the rabab of my heart
Play melodies of distances apart
And though it’s ruined, love remains within
Thus even ruins inspire works of art.
19
O dance and whirl, the melody now swells
The tambourine and flute’s rhythm compels
Longing defines itself now as desire
And breaks out in a thousand plangent yells.
20
The thorn lives in harmony with the rose
No terror on the moon can night impose
The buyer and the seller are as one
Love’s companionship is all Rumi knows!
(Excerpted from Rumi: A New Selection translated by Farrukh Dhondy, with permission from Harper Collins Publishers)
