Although primarily known for his political and military exploits, Emir ‘abd al-Qadir was a spiritual master and poet of the highest caliber, as the following poems demonstrate…
I am God, I am the creature
I am the Lord, I am the servant
I am the Throne, I am the carpet
I am water, I am fire
I am wind, I am earth
I am quantity, I am quality
I am finding, I am losing
I am essence, I am attribute
I am nearness, I am distance
All existence is my existence
I am the Only, I am the Unique
Original:
أنا حق أنا خلق أنا رب أنا عبد
أنا عرش أنا فرش و جحيم أنا خلد
أنا ماء أنا نار و هواء أنا صلد
أنا كم أنا كيف أنا وجد أنا فقد
أنا ذات أنا وصف أنا قرب أنا بعد
كل كون ذاك كوني أنا وحدي أنا فرد
O sun without light, O light without sun
O sea without limit, O shore without sea
O denial without knowledge, O knowledge without denial
O other without identity, O identity without other
O cover without unveiling, O unveiling without cover
O dawn without night, O night without dawn,
O my amazement, O my wonder, O the edge of his throne…
What is music and why there is so much of the enchantment of love in it?
Music is the secret of Love and Love is the secret of God
Original:
سرود چيست كه چندين فسون عشق داراوست
سرود محرم عشق است و عشق محرم اوست
Love plays its lute behind the screen —
where is a lover to listen to its tune?
The world has spilled Love’s secret —
when could music ever hold its tongue?
Every atom babbles the mystery —
Listen yourself, for I’m no tattletale!
-Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi
Rumi
“In the house of lovers, the music never stops,
the walls are made of songs & the floor dances”
Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.
This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.
Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.
(From: Rumi – Selected Poems. Translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne)
‘Tis said, the pipe and lute that charm our ears
Derive their melody from rolling spheres;
But Faith, o’erpassing speculation’s bound,
Can see what sweetens every jangled sound.
We, who are parts of Adam, heard with him
The song of angels and of seraphim.
Out memory, though dull and sad, retains
Some echo still of those unearthly strains.
Oh, music is the meat of all who love,
Music uplifts the soul to realms above.
The ashes glow, the latent fires increase:
We listen and are fed with joy and peace.
trans. R. A. Nicholson
(From: ‘Persian Poems‘, an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J. Arberry, Everyman’s Library, 1972)
We rarely hear the inward music,
but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless
directed by the one who teaches us,
the pure joy of the sun,
our music master.
We all were parts of Adam at one time
In paradise we all have heard these tunes
Though clay and water fill us up with doubts
We still remember something of those songs
The musician’s art is to send light into the depths of men’s hearts
-Robert Schumann
All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music
-Walter Pater
Music is the mediation between the intellectual and the sensuous life
-Beethoven
Music is the Answer to the mystery of life; it is the most profound of all the arts; it expresses the deepest thoughts of life and being in simple language which nonetheless cannot be translated.
Ne me quitte pas
Il faut oublier
Tout peut s’oublier
Qui s’enfuit déjà
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus
Et le temps perdu
A savoir comment
Oublier ces heures
Qui tuaient parfois
A coups de pourquoi
Le coeur du bonheur
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Moi je t’offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Où il ne pleut pas
Je creuserai la terre
Jusqu’après ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D’or et de lumière
Je ferai un domaine
Où l’amour sera roi
Où l’amour sera loi
Où tu seras reine
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Je t’inventerai
Des mots insensés
Que tu comprendras
Je te parlerai
De ces amants là
Qui ont vu deux fois
Leurs coeurs s’embraser
Je te racont’rai
L’histoire de ce roi
Mort de n’avoir pas
Pu te rencontrer
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
On a vu souvent
Rejaillir le feu
De l’ancien volcan
Qu’on croyait trop vieux
Il est paraît-il
Des terres brûlées
Donnant plus de blé
Qu’un meilleur avril
Et quand vient le soir
Pour qu’un ciel flamboie
Le rouge et le noir
Ne s’épousent-ils pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Je ne vais plus pleurer
Je ne vais plus parler
Je me cacherai là
À te regarder
Danser et sourire
Et à t’écouter
Chanter et puis rire
Laisse-moi devenir
L’ombre de ton ombre
L’ombre de ta main
L’ombre de ton chien
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Translation:
Don’t leave me now
We must forget
All can be forgotten
It escapes already
Forget the time
The misunderstandings
And the moments lost
We must know how
Forget those hours
Which killed at times
With each thrust of why
The heart of happiness
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Me I’ll offer you
Pearls of rain
That come from a country
Where rain never falls
I would mine the earth
‘Til after my death
To cover your body
With gold and with light
I’ll make a kingdom
Where love shall be king
Where love shall be law
Where you shall be queen
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
I’ll invent for you
Such nonsense words
That you’ll understand
I’ll speak to you
Of those lovers there
Who have seen two times
their hearts all ablaze
I will recount for you
The story of that king
Dead for not having
the chance to meet you
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
We have often seen
Fire gush out
From an ancient volcano
We thought was too old
There are, it seems
Some scorched fields
That yield more wheat
Than the best of April
And when evening comes
So that the sky is ablaze
The black and the red
Do they not wed
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
I’ll no longer cry
I’ll no longer speak
I’ll hide right there
Just to look at you
Watch you dance and smile
And listen to you
As you sing and laugh
Let me become
The shadow of your shadow
The shadow of your hand
The shadow of your hound
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Don’t leave me now
Yesterday when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue,
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame.
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I always built, alas, on weak and shifting sand,
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years ran away.
Yesterday when I was young
So many drinking songs were waiting to be sung,
So many wayward pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see.
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think what life was all about,
And every conversation I can now recall
Concerned itself with me, me, and nothing else at all.
Yesterday the moon was blue
And every crazy day brought something new to do,
I used my magic age as if it were a wand
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond.
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died.
The friends I made all seemed, somehow, to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play.
There are so many songs in me that won’t be sung,
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue.
The time has come for me to pay for yesterday
When I was young… young… young
Original:
Hier encore
J’avais vingt ans
Je caressais le temps
Et jouais de la vie
Comme on joue de l’amour
Et je vivais la nuit
Sans compter sur mes jours
Qui fuyaient dans le temps
J’ai fait tant de projets
Qui sont restés en l’air
J’ai fondé tant d’espoirs
Qui se sont envolés
Que je reste perdu
Ne sachant où aller
Les yeux cherchant le ciel
Mais le coeur mis en terre
Hier encore
J’avais vingt ans
Je gaspillais le temps
En croyant l’arrêter
Et pour le retenir
Même le devancer
Je n’ai fait que courir
Et me suis essoufflé
Ignorant le passé
Conjuguant au futur
Je précédais de moi
Toute conversation
Et donnais mon avis
Que je voulais le bon
Pour critiquer le monde
Avec désinvolture
Hier encore
J’avais vingt ans
Mais j’ai perdu mon temps
A faire des folies
Qui ne me laissent au fond
Rien de vraiment précis
Que quelques rides au front
Et la peur de l’ennui
Car mes amours sont mortes
Avant que d’exister
Mes amis sont partis
Et ne reviendront pas
Par ma faute j’ai fait
Le vide autour de moi
Et j’ai gâché ma vie
Et mes jeunes années
Du meilleur et du pire
En jetant le meilleur
J’ai figé mes sourires
Et j’ai glacé mes pleurs
Où sont-ils à présent
A présent mes vingt ans?
than the words of love that linger in this turning dome
از صدای سخن عشق نديدم خوشتر
يادگاری که در اين گنبد دوار بماند
Cristina Branco:
The certitude of my brightest love
The certitude of my brightest love
I am going to light up, should there be no moonlight tomorrow
And I will gather from a firefly a lonely glow
That the good bug may forgive me for this theft
Whistling the melodies ever more beautiful
And describing the cities I’ve seen
Of men and fossils and their gestures as written
Of good and evil, peace, calm and tumult
If I am alone it is in an alley that I meet myself
I go door to door asking who saw me
If I lived there, if I was the same and at what point
My desire packed its bags and fled.
Whistling the melody ever more beautiful
The certainty of my brightest love
Of the feeling among the others the favourite
That is to see the rose with time gain colour.
Whistling the melodies ever more brilliant
As brilliant from the certainty of a love
As the ruby most precious among others
That is of tenderness alternating with ardour.
I will not deny staying thus in this beauty
Whistling the melodies ever more fleeting
It is not possible nor is it simple, for sure
But it is will that gives me what I am doing.
As certezas do meu mais brilhante amor
Vou acender, que amanhã não há luar
E eu colherei do pirilampo um só fulgor
Que me perdoe o bom bichinho de o roubar
Assobiando as melodias mais bonitas
E das cidades descrevendo o que já vi
Homens e fósseis e seus gestos como escritas
Do bem e do mal, a paz a calma e frenesi
Se estou sozinho é num beco que me encontro
Vou porta a porta perguntando a quem me viu
Se ali morei, se eu era o mesmo e em que ponto
O meu desejo fez as malas e fugiu
Assobiando a melodia mais bonita
A da certeza do meu mais brilhante amor
Da sensação de entre as demais a favorita
Que é ver a rosa com o tempo a ganhar cor
Assobiando as melodias mais brilhantes
Como o brilhante da certeza de um amor
Como o rubi mais precioso entre os restantes
Que é o da meiguice alternando com ardor
Não negarei ficar assim nesta beleza
Assobiando as melodias mais fugazes
Não é possível nem é simples, com certeza
Mas é vontade que me dá do que me fazes
He is going to possess me
Not possess me
In some corner
It is like water flowing,
Flowing to the end,
It is so much that he wants me.
My sweetheart
My sweetheart
My home
Is where you want to live.
He is going to illuminate me
Not illuminate me
A shortcut at least.
I know that he is going to lead me
Leading softly
Along the way that I want to go.
My sweetheart
My sweetheart
My home is where you want to live.
I see my darling with his eyes And it is with my eyes That my darling sees me
My sweetheart
My sweetheart
My home
Is where you want to live.
Ele vai-me possuindo
Não me possuindo
Num canto qualquer
É como as águas fluindo
Fluindo até ao fim
É bem assim que ele me quer
Meu namorado
Meu namorado
Minha morada
É onde tu quiseres morar
Ele vai-me iluminando
Não iluminando
Um atalho sequer
Sei que ele vai-me guiando
Guiando de mansinho
Pelo caminho que eu quiser
Meu namorado
Meu namorado
É onde tu quiseres morar
Vejo meu bem com seus olhos
E é com meus olhos
Que o meu bem me vê
Meu namorado
Meu namorado
Minha morada
É onde tu quiseres morar
Ibn ‘Arabi:
Listen, O dearly beloved!
I am the reality of the world, the centre of the circumference,
I am the parts and the whole.
I am the will established between Heaven and Earth,
I have created perception in you only in order to be the
object of my perception.
If then you perceive me, you perceive yourself.
But you cannot perceive me through yourself,
It is through my eyes that you see me and see yourself,
Through your eyes you cannot see me.Dearly beloved!
I have called you so often and you have not heard me
I have shown myself to you so often and you have not
seen me.
I have made myself fragrance so often, and you have
not smelled me.
Savorous food, and you have not tasted me.
Why can you not reach me through the object you touch
Or breathe me through sweet perfumes?
Why do you not see me? Why do you not hear me?
Why? Why? Why?
With memory’s self, in nearness, farness vanished is
-Abu’l Husayn an-Nuri
أريد دوام الذكر من فرط حبّه
فيا عجبا من غيبة الذكر في الوجد
و أعجب منه غيبة الوجد تارة
و غيبة عين الذكر في القرب و البعد
ابو الحسين النوري-
Ibn al-Farid:
Increase me in love for you, and wonder
and have mercy on a heart, scorched mad by your love
And if I ask to really see you
Be generous and let not your answer be, “thou shalt not see“
O heart, you promised me that you’d be patient in loving them
Take heed and avoid anguish and anxiety
Verily, Life is love, so die in love
and it’s your right to die in love, forgiven
Tell those before me, and those behind
And whoever witnessed my sorrow:
Learn from me and my example, and hear me
And tell mankind the story of my love
Alone with my Love I have been:
A secret subtler than the wind’s lightest breath,
Whenon the night it steals, between us passed;
He granted to my gaze a longed-for sight
Whence I, till then unknown, illustrious am
Between His Beauty and His Majesty
I marvelled, and my state of marvelling
Was like an eloquent tongue that spake of me.
Turn then thy looks unto His countenance,
To find the whole of beauty lineate there.
All beauty, if it gathered were and made
One perfect form, beholding Him, would say:
There is no god but God; God is greater.
Original:
زِدني بفرط الحب فيك تحيّراً
وارحم حشى بلظى هواك تسعَرّا
وإذا سألتُك أن أراك حقيقةًً
فاسمحْ ولا تجعلْ جوابيَ : لن ترى
يا قلبُ أنت وعدتني في حبهم
صبراً فحاذرْ أن تضيق وتضجرا
إنّ الغرامَ هو الحياةُ فمُت به
صبَّاً فحقُكَ أن تموتَ وتُعذرا
قل للذين تقدموا قبلي ومَن
بعدي ومَن أضحى لأشجاني يرى
عني خذوا وبيَ اقتدوا ولي اسمعوا
وتحدثوا بصبابتي بين الورى
ولقد خلوتُ مع الحبيب وبيننا
سِرٌّ أرقُّ من النسيِمِ إذا سرى
وأباح طرفي نظرةً أمّلتُها
فغدوتُ معروفاً وكنت مُنَكَّرا
فدهشتُ بين جمالِهِ وجلالِهِ
وغدا لسانُ الحالِ عنّي مُخْبِرا
فأدِر لِحاظك في محاسن وجهه
تلقى جميعَ الحسنِ فيه مصوَّرا
لو أنّ كلَّ الحسنِ يكمل صورةً
ورآه كان مهلِّلاً ومكبّرا
Not birds, nor stars, nor sails
Are as beautiful in my breast
Daybreak falls silent in my eyes
The night enveloped me so
With this pain as if from a dagger
With this cry of a love without end
Love without end, love without time and measure
Water drawn from the distance, from its source
Light that dawns without dimming
Love that wants to be a breeze, but is a gale
Love that wants to be rain, but is a storm
It is all or nothing and there is everything to lose.
Original:
Fim
Nem pássaros, nem astros, nem veleiros
São tão belos dentro do meu peito
Calou-se a madrugada nos meus olhos
Por isso a noite me envolveu assim
Com esta dor que é asa de punhal
Com este grito de um amor sem fim
Amor sem fim, amor sem tempo e sem medida
Água que brota ao longe da nascente
Luz que amanhece sem anoitecer
Amor que quer ser brisa e é vendaval
Amor que quer ser chuva e é temporal
Que é tudo ou nada e tudo há de perder
Fado of Perdition:
This love is not a river
It has the vastness of the sea
The green dance of the waves
Sobbing in my eyes.
I tried to forget the words
Unspoken between us
But hanging over the silence
On the shores of our voice
I tried to forget your eyes
That do not know how to read mine
But in them is born the daybreak
That dawns on the earth and the heavens
I tried to forget your name
Pluck it from my thoughts
But it returns at every instant
Entwined in the wind.
I tried to see my image
But it was yours that I saw
In my mirror, for I bear
The flat eyes of you.
This love is not a river
It has abysses like the sea
And the black mantle of the waves
Shrouds me in blackness
This love is not a river
It has the vastness of the sea
Say: Were the ocean ink for the Words of my Lord (to be written out), sooner would the ocean be exhausted than would the Words of my Lord, even if We added another ocean like it, for its aid.
-Surah Kahf: 109
Sarmad:
The ocean of his generosity has no shore.
The tongue is powerless to thank,
the heart too bewildered to understand.
Though my sins are many
his compassion is greater still–
I swim in the sea of disobedience
but I do not drown.
– from Sarmad: Martyr to Love Divine, by Isaac Ezekiel
Hafez :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmioiJ-UmT8
The sea of love is a sea that has no shore.
There, you can only give up your soul.
Each time you give your heart to love is a joyous moment.
For auspicious deeds there is no need for divination.
Avail yourself of the rend’s way, for this mark,
like the road to buried treasure, is not plain to everyone.
Don’t frighten us with reason’s prohibitions, and bring wine,
for that watchman has no authority in our province.
One can see him with a pure eye, like the new moon.
Not every eye can hold that crescent’s beauty.
Ask your own eyes who is killing us, O soul,
it is not the sin of ascendants and the crime of stars.
You are unaffected by the cry of Hafiz.
I am perplexed at that heart, hard as granite.
Translation:
Elizabeth Gray, The Green Sea of Heaven
Original:
بحریست بحر عشق که هیچش کناره نیست
آن جا جز آن که جان بسپارند چاره نیست
هر گه که دل به عشق دهی خوش دمی بود
در کار خیر حاجت هیچ استخاره نیست
ما را به منع عقل مترسان و می بیار
کان شحنه در ولایت ما هیچ کاره نیست
از چشم خود بپرس که ما را که میکشد
جانا گناه طالع و جرم ستاره نیست
او را به چشم پاک توان دید چون هلال
هر دیده جای جلوه آن ماه پاره نیست
فرصت شمر طریقه رندی که این نشان
چون راه گنج بر همه کس آشکاره نیست
نگرفت در تو گریه حافظ، به هیچ رو
حیران آن دلم که کم از سنگ خاره نیست
Rumi:
If there is no sign of you in someone
گر خورشیدست آن ندارد
Even if they are
shining like the sun,
they still don’t have
That (secret element)!
ما بر در و بام عشق حیران
We stand
raptured in awe
at the gates
and on the roof
of loveآن بام که نردبان ندارد
An inaccessible roof
With no ladder
دل چون چنگست و عشق زخمه
The heart is a harp
And love the player
پس دل به چه دل فغان ندارد
Who cannot feel emotions
Of longing when you hear it played?
امروز فغان عاشقان را
بشنو که تو را زیان نداردهر ذره پر از فغان و نالهست
Every particle of the lovers being is shouting
اما چه کند زیان ندارد
And behold there is no hurt involved
رقص است زبان ذره زیرا
Dance is the speech of the moon’s atoms
جز رقص دگر بیان ندارد
Other than dance it has no other expression
هر سو نگران تست دلها
وان سو که تویی گمان ندارد
این عالم را کرانهای هست
This world does have a boundary
عشق من و تو کران ندارد
The love of me and you has none
مانند خیال تو ندیدم
I have never seen anything like the thought of You
بوسه دهد و دهان ندارد
Which gives kisses without having a mouth
ماننده غمزهات ندیدم
I have not seen the likeness of your coyness
تیر اندازد کمان ندارد
Which shoots arrows but has no bow
دادی کمری که بر میان بند
طفل دل من میان ندارد
گفتی که به سوی ما روان شو
بی لطف تو جان روان ندارد
Ibn ‘Arabi
I marveled at an Ocean without shore,
and at a Shore that did not have an ocean;
And at a Morning Light without darkness,
and at a Night that was without daybreak;
And then a Sphere with no locality
known to either fool or learned scholar;
And at an azure Dome raised over the earth,
circulating ’round its center – Compulsion;
And at a rich Earth without o’er-arching vault
and no specific location, the Secret concealed…
جان منی جان منی جان من
You are my life my life my life essence
آن منی آن منی آن من
You belong to me to me to me alone
شاه منی لایق سودای من
You are my king, we deserve to mingle
قند منی لایق دندان من
You are my sweet sugar cube, deserving only of my teeth
نور منی باش در این چشم من
You are my light, remain here in my eyes
چشم من و چشمه حیوان من
My eyes and the very life giving fountain of my life
گل چو تو را دید به سوسن بگفت
When the flower saw you,
told the rose
سرو من آمد به گلستان من
The greatest of flowers has come to my garden
از دو پراکنده تو چونی بگو
Tell me why we are apart
Why are you not here with me?
زلف تو حال پریشان من
I grow sad when I don’t see the curves of your beautiful hair
ای رسن زلف تو پابند من
Your locks lock my feet
چاه زنخدان تو زندان من
As if trapped inside that famous well
دست فشان مست کجا میروی
Take my hand, where are you off to?
پیش من آ ای گل خندان من
My smiling flower, come to me !
Translation: Ali Arsanjani; from http://rumi-poetry.blogspot.com/
