{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/saab/saab03.htm","path":"isl/saab/saab03.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/saab/saab03.htm","text":"Salaman and Absal, by Jami, tr. Edward Fitzgerald, [1904]\nThe several Spellings of some Proper Names, especially the Prophet's, in Memoir and Appendix, must be excused by the several Writers they are quoted from.\nOh Thou whose Memory quickens Lovers\u2019 Souls,\n Whose Fount of Joy renews the Lover's Tongue,\n Thy Shadow falls across the World, and They\n Bow down to it; and of the Rich in Beauty\n Thou art the Riches that make Lovers mad.\n Not till thy Secret Beauty through the Cheek\n Of Laila smite does she inflame Majn\u00fan,\n And not till Thou have sugar\u2019d Sh\u00edr\u00edn's Lip\n The Hearts of those Two Lovers fill with Blood.\n For Lov\u2019d and Lover are not but by Thee,\n Nor Beauty;\u2014Mortal Beauty but the Veil\n Thy Heavenly hides behind, and from itself\n Feeds, and our Hearts yearn after as a Bride\n That glances past us Veil\u2019d\u2014but ever so\n As none the Beauty from the Veil may know.\n How long wilt thou continue thus the World\n To cozen with the Fantom of a Veil\nFrom which Thou only peepest?\u2014Time it is\n To unfold thy perfect Beauty. I would be\n Thy Lover, and Thine only\u2014I, mine Eyes\n Seal\u2019d in the Light of Thee to all but Thee,\n Yea, in the Revelation of Thyself\n Self-Lost, and Conscience-quit of Good and Evil.\n Thou movest under all the Forms of Truth,\n Under the Forms of all Created Things;\n Look whence I will, still nothing I discern\n But Thee in all the Universe, in which\n Thyself Thou dost invest, and through the Eyes\n Of Man, the subtle Censor scrutinize.\n To thy Har\u00edm Dividuality\n No Entrance finds\u2014no Word of This and That;\n Do Thou my separate and Deriv\u00e9d Self\n Make one with thy Essential! Leave me room\n On that Div\u00e1n which leaves no Room for Two;\n Lest, like the Simple Kurd of whom they tell,\n I grow perplext, Oh God! \u2019twixt \"I\" and \"Thou;\"\n If I\u2014this Dignity and Wisdom whence?\n If Thou\u2014then what this abject Impotence?\nOh God! this poor bewilder\u2019d Kurd am I,\n Than any Kurd more helpless!\u2014Oh, do thou\n Strike down a Ray of Light into my Darkness!\n Turn by thy Grace these Dregs into pure Wine,\n To recreate the Spirits of the Good!\n Or if not that, yet, as the little Cup\n Whose Name I go by, not unworthy found\n To pass thy salutary Vintage round!","title":"Salaman and Absal: Sal\u00e1m\u00e1n and Abs\u00e1l: I. Prologue","type":"page"}