In This Garden

O soul, who is that standing in the house of the heart? Who
may be on the royal throne but the king and the prince?*
He signaled with his hand, "Tell me, what do you want of
me?" What does a drunken man desire but sweetmeats and a
cup of wine?

Sweetmeats hanging from the heart, a cup of pure light, an
eternal banquet laid in the privacy of "He is the Truth."*
How many deceivers there are at the wine-drinkers' feast!
Beware, lest you fall, soft and simple man!

In the circle of reprobates beware lest you be eye-shut like
the bud, mouth-open like the rose.

The world is like a mirror, the image of the perfection of Love;
men, who has ever seen a part greater than the whole?

Go on foot like the grass, for in this rose garden the Beloved
like a rose is riding; all the rest are on foot.

He is both sword and swordsman, both slain and slayer, all
Reason, and giving reason to the mind.*

That king is Salah-al-din* may he endure forever, may his
bountiful hand be perpetually a necklace on my neck!

-- Translation by A. J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
The University of Chicago Press, 1968

* According to Nicholson (Divan-i Sham, 238, 300) this is a reference
to the hadis' of the Prophet, where God says: "My earth and heaven
contain me not, but the heart of my believing servant contains me."
* "He is the Truth" Qur'an 22:6.
* Reason is annihilated in mystical love.
* "Salah-al-din Zarkub", who died c. 659/1261, was Rumi's pir'
(teacher) after Shams al-Din vanished he is here hailed as an
embodiment of the Spirit of Muhammad, the Perfect Man.