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Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold
From “Pearls of the Faith”
He made life—and He takes it—but instead | |
| Gives more: praise the Restorer, Al-Mu’hid! | |
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| HE who dies at Azan 1 sends | |
| This to comfort faithful friends:— | |
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| Faithful friends! it lies, I know, | 5 |
| Pale and white and cold as snow; | |
| And ye says, “Abdullah ’s dead!” | |
| Weeping at my feet and head. | |
| I can see your falling tears, | |
| I can hear your cries and prayers, | 10 |
| Yet I smile and whisper this:— | |
| “I am not that thing you kiss; | |
| Cease your tears and let it lie: | |
| It was mine, it is not I.” | |
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| Sweet friends! what the women lave | 15 |
| For its last bed in the grave | |
| Is a tent which I am quitting, | |
| Is a garment no more fitting, | |
| Is a cage from which at last | |
| Like a hawk my soul hath passed. | 20 |
| Love the inmate, not the room; | |
| The wearer, not the garb; the plume | |
| Of the falcon, not the bars | |
| Which kept him from the splendid stars. | |
| Loving friends! be wise, and dry | 25 |
| Straightway every weeping eye: | |
| What ye lift upon the bier | |
| Is not worth a wistful tear. | |
| ’T is an empty sea-shell, one | |
| Out of which the pearl is gone. | 30 |
| The shell is broken, it lies there; | |
| The pearl, the all, the soul, is here. | |
| ’T is an earthen jar whose lid | |
| Allah sealed, the while it hid | |
| That treasure of His treasury, | 35 |
| A mind which loved him: let it lie! | |
| Let the shard be earth’s once more, | |
| Since the gold shines in His store! | |
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| Allah Mu’hid, Allah most good! | |
| Now thy grace is understood: | 40 |
| Now my heart no longer wonders | |
| What Al-Barsakh is, which sunders | |
| Life from death, and death from heaven: | |
| Nor the “Paradises Seven” | |
| Which the happy dead inherit; | 45 |
| Nor those “birds” which bear each spirit | |
| Toward the Throne, “green birds and white,” | |
| Radiant, glorious, swift their flight! | |
| Now the long, long darkness ends. | |
| Yet ye wail, my foolish friends, | 50 |
| While the man whom ye call “dead” | |
| In unbroken bliss instead | |
| Lives, and loves you: lost, ’t is true | |
| By any light which shines for you; | |
| But in light ye cannot see | 55 |
| Of unfulfilled felicity, | |
| And enlarging Paradise; | |
| Lives the life that never dies. | |
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| Farewell, friends! Yet not farewell; | |
| Where I am, ye too shall dwell. | 60 |
| I am gone before your face | |
| A heart-beat’s time, a gray ant’s pace. | |
| When ye come where I have stepped, | |
| Ye will marvel why ye wept; | |
| Ye will know, by true love taught, | 65 |
| That here is all, and there is naught. | |
| Weep awhile, if ye are fain,— | |
| Sunshine still must follow rain! | |
| Only not at death, for death— | |
| Now I see—is that first breath | 70 |
| Which our souls draw when we enter | |
| Life, that is of all life center. | |
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| Know ye Allah’s law is love, | |
| Viewed from Allah’s Throne above; | |
| Be ye firm of trust, and come | 75 |
| Faithful onward to your home! | |
| “La Allah illa Allah! Yea, | |
| Mu’hid! Restorer! Sovereign!” say! | |
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| He who died at Azan gave | |
| This to those that made his grave. | 80 |
