Author: DJ

There was a king whose comely daughter’s grace

Was such that any man who glimpsed her face

Declared himself in love. Like starless dusk

Her dark hair hung, soft-scented like fine musk;

The charm of her slow, humid eyes awoke

The depths of sleeping love, and when she spoke,

No sugar was as sweet as her lips’ sweet;

No rubies with their colour could compete.

A dervish saw her, by the will of Fate.

From his arrested hand the crust he ate

Dropped unregarded, and the princess smiled.

This glance lived in his heart – the man grew wild

With ardent love, with restless misery;

For seven years he wept continually

And was content to live alone and wait,

Abject, among stray dogs, outside her gate.

At last, affronted by this fool and tired

Of his despair, her serving-men conspired

To murder him. The princess heard their plan,

Which she divulged to him. “O wretched man,”

She said, “how could you hope for love between

A dervish and the daughter of a queen?

You cannot live outside my palace door;

Be off with you and haunt these streets no more.

If you are here tomorrow you will die!”

The dervish answered her:

“That day when I First saw your beauty I despaired of life;

Why should I fear the hired assassin’s knife?

The hoopoe answered him:

‘Dear nightingale,

This superficial love which makes you quail

Is only for the outward show of things.

Renounce delusion and prepare your wings

For our great quest; sharp thorns defend the rose

And beauty such as hers too quickly goes.

True love will see such empty transience

For what it is – a fleeting turbulence

That fills your sleepless nights with grief and blame –

Forget the rose’s blush and blush for shame!

Each spring she laughs,

not for you, as you say,

But at you – and has faded in a day.

Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night

To learn the truth about the candle’s light,

And they decided one of them should go

To gather news of the elusive glow.

One flew till in the distance he discerned

A palace window where a candle burned –

And went no nearer; back again he flew

To tell the others what he thought he knew.

The mentor of the moths dismissed his claim,

Remarking: “He knows nothing of the flame.”

A moth more eager than the one before

Set out and passed beyond the palace door.

He hovered in the aura of the fire,

A trembling blur of timorous desire,

Then headed back to say how far he’d been,

And how much he had undergone and seen.

The mentor said: “You do not bear the signs

Of one who’s fathomed how the candle shines.

” Another moth flew out – his dizzy flight

Turned to an ardent wooing of the light;

He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance

Both Self and fire were mingled by his dance –

The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head;

His being glowed a fierce translucent red;

And when the mentor saw that sudden blaze,

The moth’s form lost within the glowing rays,

He said: “He knows, he knows the truth we seek,

That hidden truth of which we cannot speak.”

To go beyond all knowledge is to find

That comprehension which eludes the mind,

And you can never gain the longed-for goal

Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;

But should one part remain, a single hair

Will drag you back and plunge you in despair –

No creature’s Self can be admitted here,

Where all identity must disappear.

Next comes the Valley of pure Unity,

place of lonely, long austerity,

And all who enter on this waste have found

Their various necks by one tight collar bound –

If you see many here or but a few,

They’re one, however they appear to you.

The many here are merged in one;

one form Involves the multifarious, thick swarm

(This is the oneness of diversity,

Not oneness locked in singularity);

Unit and number here have passed away;