1916.] Quatrains 



199 



In the creed of the Sufi there was no place for 

 either Heaven or Hell.* Thoughts of the other 

 world must be abjured as sternly as the distrac- 

 tions of this, by the truly disinterested c< lover." 

 To the orthodox Moslem Paradise may have been 

 held out by Muhammed — on the authority of 

 Allah— as an end desirable in itself. To the Sufi 

 it was " not worth a straw." 



13. 



O heart, turn wholly to blood ; why hast thou patience ? 

 Away with thee, O life ; what profits all thy beauty ? 

 eye, what is that pupil 2 of thine ? Shame on thee! 

 Thou that cans't not see the State of the Beloved, of what 

 avail is thy sight \ 



? 



14. 



My heart acquired thy habit of fighting and striving ; 

 My soul found the jewel of eager desire for thy street. 

 I said to the down on thy cheek, ' Help me ' ; 

 But it too fighteth on the side of thy comely face. 



The meaning of lines 1 and 2 is that his heart 

 and soul have rebelled against him, and deserted 



him. 



15. 



At the hour of Union from the fear of banishment deliver us; 

 In the time of Separation, from its intolerable pain deliver us. 

 Alas, for this severance from my Beloved, alas ! 

 From this unendurable pain deliver us. 



The ultimate goal of the Sufi's journey was 

 " Union," absorption into the world-soul of 

 which his own soul was a part, or (to use a 

 favourite metaphor) immersion in the Absolute, 

 as a drop of water in the ocean. 



This is simply another way of expressing their 

 pantheism. For ' ■ in the world of unification,' ' as 

 the great pantheist Bayazid says, "all can be 

 one: lover, beloved, and love, all one." 



It was when they felt they had reached this 

 exalted state of "union" that Bayazid and 

 Mansur uttered their splendid blasphemies. " As 

 a snake from its skin I came forth from Bayazid- 

 ness ... I am no more, for He speaks with my 



as " pupil of the eye 



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