The Masnavi, Book One (Oxford World's Classics)

Further explanation of the hare’s stratagem
His journey to the lion he delayed
1115
In order to rehearse the plan he’d made;
After a while the hare then headed near
To whisper something in the lion’s ear.
What worlds the strength of gnosis lets you see,
More vast than oceans 
filled with purity!
Our forms traverse this lovely ocean fast
Like cups which on its surface have been cast;
Until they’re full like tubs they 
float on top
But once they’re
filled they finally start to drop,
Truth’s sea is hidden, land is on display,
1120
Our forms are waves, or just the ocean spray.
Whatever means form uses to come near
By that same means waves toss it far from here,
Until the Giver of the Truths they know,
Until the arrows learn who’s
fired the bow.
The foolish think their horses have no worth
And force them to race all across the earth:
Each places little value on his horse
Though rapidly it bears him on the course,
Such that a foolish, simple-minded twit
1125
Will even ask, ‘Has anyone seen it ––
Who stole my horse and where is he now hiding?’
‘Dear fellow, what is that on which you’re riding!’
‘This is a horse, I know, but where’s that one?’
‘Wake up famed knight, your brain has been undone!’
The soul seems lost although it’s so close by:
Your bladder’s full although your lips are dry.
How a Hare Killed the Tyrannical Lion
71

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How can you see bright colours with your sight
When you’ve not even learned to see the light?
With colours you completely lost your mind,
1130
Their glare became the veil which made you blind.
Did you not see when colours fade at night
That they are all dependent on the light?
Without light, colour disappears from view,
The same applies for inner colours too,
While outward light the sun and stars may shine
The source of inner light is the Divine:
Vision’s light comes from light inside your heart,
This inner light’s required for it to start.
Your heart’s light’s source is naught but God’s own light
1135
Safe from the reach of sense and reason’s blight.
No colours can be seen at night unlit,
For light, the darkness is the opposite:
You must see light to see the colours too,
The opposite of light has proved it’s true,
As God created hardship and distress
So through them you would learn of happiness:
All hidden things by opposites are known,
Since He has none, God’s hidden on His own.
Man can discern all colours once there’s light,
1140
Each as distinct as black skin next to white:
You know of light thanks to its opposite,
Things show their opposite through lack of it.
No opposite for God’s light can exist
Through which it might be known –– this is the gist,
Our eyes can’t see Him, even with our pleas,
Moses’s mountain proves to us 
He sees;
*
Like lions from thought’s jungle, forms have come,
In this way, thought’s where speech and sound come from;
Though speech and sound have thus emerged from thought
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You have no clue where that sea should be sought,
But since you’ve seen the wave of speech is 
fine
You know its source, that sea, must be divine.
From knowledge when there 
first arose thought’s wave
Through His speech then a form to you it gave:
How a Hare Killed the Tyrannical Lion
72

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This form was born of speech, then died again,
The waves drew back like cattle to their pen.
From formlessness comes form originally,
And