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

Belal, refresh us all!
Lift up for us your powerful voice once more
With breath I breathed inside your big heart’s core,
That breath which once left Adam so amazed,
Made heaven’s fold feel mesmerized and dazed!’
*
Mohammad lost himself in that 
fine voice,
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His prayer was not performed then by God’s choice:
He didn’t lift his head, asleep he lay,
His dawn prayer thus was subject to delay,
*
But with the Bride alone that previous night
His soul kissed both her hands and saw Her Light:
Love and the soul are veiled in the unseen,
Because I called Him ‘Bride’ don’t scream ‘obscene!’
I broke my silence not to be a bore ––
Would that He’d given me a little more!
He says, ‘Speak up, it’s not objectionable!
2005
Fate thus decreed in the Invisible.’
*
Fault lies with those who only see what’s wrong,
With such as these, pure spirit can’t belong:
Fault lies with creatures who are ignorant
And have no link to the Omnipotent;
For God though unbelief is wisdom too,
It’s just a curse if held by me or you,
The Old Harpist
123

---

For if impurities are mixed with gold
It’s like the candy’s stick you have to hold:
They’re both weighed on the scales as if one whole,
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Together like the body and the soul.
The greats did not speak idly, they were sure
‘For pure-souled men, their body’s just as pure.’
Their speech, their soul, their body, and their face
Are absolute, pure soul that leaves no trace,
The soul’s mere body if it thinks them foes,
Worth naught, like backgammon dice overthrows;
That one returns to soil and turns to earth,
While others in white salt 
find pure rebirth;
Salt made Mohammad the most excellent,
2015
Than that well-formed 
hadith more eloquent:
*
This salt’s his permanent inheritance,
His heirs are with you –– seek them out at once!
One sits before you –– which way do you face?
Where is the soul that contemplates each trace?
If you imagine you’ve a front and back,
Your body’s trapped you, soul inside you lack ––
Bodies have fronts and sides in all directions
But the enlightened soul has no dimensions.
Open your eyes to vision through His light,
2020
Avoid the search that’s the short-sighted’s plight!
You’re trapped in joy and grief, completely blind ––
In non-existence where’s front and behind?
Today it’s raining, walk until it’s night,
It’s special rain God sends to those with sight.
The story of Aisha’s asking the Prophet: ‘It rained today when you
went to the graveyard, so how is it that your clothes aren’t wet?’
The Prophet visited a grave one day
Because one of his friends had passed away,
With handfuls of dry earth he 
filled the grave,
Thus to a precious seed new life he gave.
Just like interred men, plants we see around
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All lift their outstretched hands up from the ground,
The Old Harpist
124

---

To humans they give countless signs, so clear,
They speak to those of us with ears to hear,
With outstretched hands, or like a tongue that’s green
They share earth’s secrets which lie deep, unseen;
Like birds with heads in water that soon rose
As peacocks, though they used to be mere crows:
In winter He had locked those crows in gaol,
But now He’s given them a gorgeous tail;
In winter He grants death, and each one grieves,
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But then revives them in the spring with leaves.
‘They live on by themselves,’ deniers said,
‘Why then attribute this to God instead?’
Despite their blindness, in His friends who know
God’s planted orchards which will always grow,
Every sweet-smelling rose that you should see
Reveals God’s mysteries so openly,
Despite the sceptics’ claims, we smell their scent
Across the world wherever veils are rent.
Like bugs on roses, sceptics clamber o
ff––
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Their ears can’t bear Truth’s drums, so they just sco
ff;
They act like they’re immersed in what we say
But when the lightning 
flashes, turn away––
They’ve turned their eyes away from what’s shown here:
The eye seeks safety 
first when ruled by fear.
To his wife Aisha then Mohammad turned
On coming home, to share what he had learned,
But when she saw his face she felt surprise
And touched him, just in case it was her eyes:
His turban, face, and hair she touched and felt,
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His collar and his sleeve she also smelt.
The Prophet asked, ‘What do you seek this way?’
She said, ‘I saw the rain pour down today;
I’ve checked your clothes in case they’re wet just now,
But there’s no trace of rain –– I’m wondering how!’
He asked, ‘What’s that you’re wearing on your head?’
‘I made that scarf of yours a veil instead.’