PRELUDE IN HEAVEN
On the first day of creation Heaven rebukes Earth
On the first day of creation Heaven rebukes Earth
Life out of the delight of absence and presence | |
fashioned forth this world of near and far; | |
so snapped asunder the thread of the moment | |
and mixed the hues of Time’s house of amazement. | |
On all sides, out of the joyous yearning for habitude | |
arose the cry: ‘I am one thing, you are another.’ | |
The moon and the stars learned the way to walk, | |
a hundred lamps were kindled in the firmament. | |
In the azure heavens the sun pitched | |
its gold-cloth tent with its silver ropes, | |
raised its head over the rim of the first dawn | |
and drew to its breast the new-born world. | |
Man’s realm was a heap of earth, no more, | |
an empty wilderness, without a caravan; | |
not a river wrestled in any mountain, | |
not a cloud sprinkled on any desert, | |
no chanting of birds among the branches, | |
no leaping of deer amidst the meadow. | |
Sea and land lacked the spirit’s manifestations, | |
a curling vapour was the mantle of earth’s body; | |
the grasses, never having known the breeze of March, | |
still slumbered within the depths of earth. | |
The azure sky then chided the earth, saying: | |
‘I never saw anyone pass so miserable a life! | |
In all my breadth what creature is so blind as you? | |
What light is yours, save that drawn from my lamp? | |
Be earth high as Alvand, yet it is only earth, | |
it is not bright and eternal as the skies. | |
Either live with the apparatus of a heart- charmer, | |
or die of the shame and misery of worthlessness!’ | |
Earth felt put to shame by heaven’s reproach, | |
desperate, heavy of heart, utterly annihilated, | |
fluttered before God in the agony of unlight. | |
Suddenly a voice echoed from beyond the skies: | |
‘O trusty one, as yet unaware of the trust, | |
be not sorrowful; look within thy own heart. | |
The days are bright of the tumult of life, | |
not through the light thou seest spread in all quarters. | |
Dawn’s light comes from the spotted sun, | |
the soul’s light is unsullied by the dust of time; | |
the soul’s light is upon a pathless journey, | |
roves farther than the rays of sun, and moon. | |
Thou hast washed from the soul’s tablet the image of hope, | |
yet the soul’s light manifests out of thy dust! | |
Man’s reason is making assault on the world, | |
but his love makes assault on the Infinite; | |
his thought knows the way without any guide, | |
his sight is more wakeful than Gabriel. | |
Earthy, yet in flight he is like an angel; | |
heaven is but an ancient inn upon his way; | |
he pricks into the very depths of the heavns | |
like the point of a needle into silk; | |
he washes the stains from the skirt of Being, | |
and without his glance, the world is blank and blind. | |
Though few his magnificats, and much blood he sheds, | |
yet he is as a spur in the flanks of doom. | |
His sight becomes keen through observing phenomena | |
so that he sees the Essence within the attributes. | |
Whoever falls in love with the beauty of Essence, | |
he is the master of all existing things. |
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