1
O lovers, lovers, this day you and we are fallen into a whirlpool: who knows how to swim? Though the world’s torrent should overflow and every wave become like a dromedary, why shall the waterfowl worry? It is the bird of the air that should be anxious. Our faces are lighted up with gratitude, schooled as we are in wave and sea, inasmuch as ocean and flood are life-increasing to the fish. Elder, hand us a towel; water, let us plunge into you; Moses son of ‘Imrān, come, smite the water of the sea with your staff! This wind concocts in every head a different passion; let my passion be for yonder cupbearer, and you may have all the rest! Yesterday yon saki on the way snatched the caps of the drunkards; today he is giving yet more wine, preparing to strip us of our robes. O envy of the Moon and of Jupiter, with us, yet hidden from sight like a peri, gently, gently you are drawing me on—will you not say whither? Wherever you go, you are with me still, you who are my eyes and my brightness; if you will, draw me to drunkenness, if you will, transport me to annihilation. Know that the world is like Mount Sinai, and we like Moses are seekers; every moment an epiphany arrives and cleaves the mountain asunder.
One portion becomes green, one portion becomes narcissuswhite; one portion becomes a pearl, one portion ruby and amber. You who seek to behold Him, gaze upon this mountainchain of His. O mountain, what wind has blown upon you? We have become intoxicated with the echo. O gardener, gardener, why have you come to grapple with us? If we have carried off your grapes, you have carried off our purse!
2
Die now, die now, in this Love die; when you have died in this Love, you will all receive new life. Die now, die now, and do not fear this death, for you will come forth from this earth and seize the heavens.
Die now, die now, and break away from this carnal soul, for this carnal soul is as a chain and you are as prisoners. Take an axe to dig through the prison; when you have broken the prison you will all be kings and princes. Die now, die now before the beauteous King; when you have died before the King, you will all be kings and renowned. Die now, die now, and come forth from this cloud; when you come forth from this cloud, you will all be radiant full moons. Be silent, be silent; silence is the sign of death; it is because of life that you are fleeing from the silent one.
3
Little by little the drunkards congregate, little by little the wine-worshippers arrive. The heart-cherishers coquettishly come along the way, the rosy-cheeked ones are arriving from the garden. Little by little from the world of being and not-being the not-beings have departed and the beings are arriving. All with skirts full of gold as a mine are arriving for the sake of the destitute. The lean and sick from the pasturage of love are arriving fat and hale. The souls of the pure ones like the rays of the sun are arriving from such a height to the lowly ones. Blessed is that garden, where, for the sake of the Mary’s, new fruits are arriving even in winter. Their origin is grace, and their return is grace; even from the garden to the garden they are coming.
4
I beheld the lovely rosebower face, that eye and lamp of all brightness, That altar before which the soul prostrates, that gladness and place of security.
The heart said, “I will yield up my soul there, I will let go of being and selfhood.” The soul also joined in the concert and began to clap hands. Reason came and said, “What shall I say regarding this good fortune and sublime felicity, This scent of a rose that made upright as a cypress every back that was curved and bent double?” In love all things are transformed; Armenian is changed to Turk. Soul, you have attained to the Soul of the soul; body, you have abandoned bodihood. The ruby is the alms of our Beloved; the dervish eats the gold of the Rich; That Mary in anguish discovers anew dates fresh and ripe. Lest the eye of a stranger should fall upon it, do not show off your good deed to men; If your desire from faith is security, seek your security in seclusion. What is the place of seclusion? The house of the heart; become habituated to dwell in the heart; In the heart’s house is delivered that bowl of wholesome and everlasting wine. Be silent, and practise the art of silence; let go all artful bragging; For the heart is the place of faith, there in the heart hold fast to faithfulness.
5
Hark, for I am at the door! Open the door; to bar the door is not the sign of good pleasure. In the heart of every atom is a courtyard for You; until You unbar it, it will remain in concealment. You are the Splitter of Dawn, the Lord of the Daybreak; You open a hundred doors and say, “Come in!” It is not I at the door, but You; grant access, open the door to Yourself. Sulphur came to a fire; it said, “Come out to me, beloved! My form is not your form, but I am all you, my form is as a veil.
I become you in form and reality when you arrive, my form is blotted out in the encounter.” The fire replied, “I have come forth; why should I veil my face from my very self?” Hark, receive from me and deliver my message to all the companions and all the kinsmen. If it is a mountain, draw it like a straw; I have given you the quality of amber. My amber draws the mountain; did I not bring forth Mount H irā out of nonexistence? . I am wholly and completely within your heart; {come toward your own heart—Welcome! I am the heart-stealer and I take the heart,} for the pearl of the heart was born of my ocean. I move my shadow, otherwise how is it that my shadow is apart from me? But I transport it from its place so that, at the time of unveiling, its union may become manifest, So that it may realize that it is a branch of me, so that it may become separated from all other. Go to the saki and hear the rest of it, that he may tell you it with the tongue of immortality.
6
Today I beheld the beloved, that ornament of every affair; he went off departing to heaven like the spirit of Mustafā. The sun is put to shame by his countenance, heaven’s sphere is as confused as the heart; through his glow, water and clay are more resplendent than fire. I said, “Show me the ladder, that I may mount up to heaven.” He said, “Your head is the ladder; bring your head down under your feet.” When you place your feet on your head, you will place your feet on the head of the stars; when you cleave through the air, set your foot on the air, so, and come! A hundred ways to heaven’s air become manifest to you; you go flying up to heaven every dawning like a prayer.
7
Walk to the well.
Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
circling what they love.
Whatever circles comes from the center.
8
Grapes under feet that crush them
turn whichever way they are turned.
You ask why I turn around you?
Not around you, I turn around myself.
9
Gone, inner and outer,
no moon, no ground or sky.
Don’t hand me another glass of wine.
Pour it in my mouth.
I’ve lost the way to my mouth.
10
A secret turning in us makes the universe turn.
Head unaware of feet,
and feet of head.
Neither cares. They keep turning.
11
One day you will take me completely out of myself,
I’ll do what the angels cannot do.
Your eyelash will write on my cheek
the poem that hasn’t been thought of.
12
My turban, my robe, my head, those three
for less than a penny.
My self, my name, not to be mentioned,
less than nothing.
13
14
Two hands, two feet, two eyes, good, as it should be, but no separation of the Friend and your loving. Any dividing there makes other untrue distinctions like “Jew,” and “Christian,” and “Muslim.”
15
When your love reaches the core, earth-heavals and bright irruptions spew in the air. The universe becomes one spiritual thing, that simple, love mixing with spirit.
16
Don’t forget the nut, being so proud of the shell,
The body has its inward ways,
the five senses. They crack open,
and the Friend is revealed.
Crack open the Friend, you become
the All-One.
17
We don’t need wine to get drunk, or instruments and singing to feel ecstatic. No poets, no leaders, no songs, yet we jump around totally wild.
18
From the wet source someone cuts a reed to make a flute. The reed sips breath like wine, sips more, practicing. Now drunk, it starts the high clear notes.
19
Who ever saw such drunkards?
Barrels broken open, the ground and starry
ceiling soaked. And look,
this full glass in my hand.
During the day I was singing with you.
At night we slept in the same bed.
I wasn’t conscious day or night.
I thought I knew who I was,
but I was you.
The sufi opens his hands to the universe
and gives away each instant, free.
Unlike someone who begs on the street for money to survive,
a dervish begs to give you his life.
Drinking wine with you.
Getting warmer and warmer,
I think why not trade in this overcoat,
Made of leaves and dirt.
Then I look out the window.
For what?
Both worlds are here.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
24
They say that Paradise will be perfect with lots of clear white wine and all the beautiful women. We hold on to times like this then, since this is how it’s going to be.
There’s hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox
is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and belly are burning clean
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.
When you’re full of food and drink, Satan sits
where your spirit should, an ugly metal statue
in place of the Kaaba. When you fast,
good habits gather like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Solomon’s ring. Don’t give it
to some illusion and lose your power,
but even if you have, if you’ve lost all will and control,
they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing
out of the ground, pennants flying above them.
A table descends to your tents,
Jesus’ table.
Expect to see it, when you fast, this table
spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.
Circumambulation
The wheel of heaven, with all its pomp and splendour, circles around God like a mill. My soul, circumambulate around such a Kaaba; beggar, circle about such a table. Travel like a ball around in His polo-field, inasmuch as you have become happy and helpless. Your knight and rook are circumambulating about the king, even though you move from place to place on this chessboard. He set on your finger the royal signet so that you might become a ruler having authority.
Whoever circumambulates about the heart becomes the soul of the world, heart-ravishing. The heart-forlorn becomes companion to the moth, he circles about the tip of the candle, Because his body is earthy and his heart of fire—congener has an inclination towards congener. Every star circles about the sky, because purity is the congener of purity. The mystic’s soul circles about annihilation, even as iron about a magnet, Because annihilation is true existence in his sight, his eyes having been washed clean of squinting and error…
Many of the above are excerpted from the larger collection by A. J. Arberry available on WikiSchool. Also available on the Internet Archive.