’Twas He who taught to Adam ev’ry thing’s true name,
Through Adam to mankind imparted He the same.
Take thou enlightenment from Adam or the Lord.
Draw wine as thou mayest list from jar or from the gourd.[250]
The distance is not great between the gourd and jar.
The gourd is not, like thee, made drunk by grape’s nectar.
Draw water from the brook, or from a pitcher’s mouth;
The brook is still the source whence pitcher’s filled; forsooth. 35
Seek light as listest; whether from the moon or sun.
The moon derives her sheen from daystar’s golden tun.
Imbibe what light thou canst from any twinkling star.
The Prophet said: “Stars are all my disciples.” Hear![251]
He further said: “How happy they who see my face,[252]
And happy they who look on them in their own place.”
He said: “Good luck to all who have the happy chance[253]
To look on my disciples,--mirrors of my glance.”
If thou by taper’s aid proceed to light a lamp,
The eye that sees its light, perceives the taper’s stamp. 40
If one lamp from another should be lighted; well!
The light received from this, has come from that one’s cell.
And so, if through a thousand wicks the light should pass,
Who sees the last enjoys the gift of all the mass.
The light of this last lamp’s as pure as is the whole;
No difference is there. And thus ’tis with the soul.
The light diffused by teachers in these latter days,
No other is than what was shown by earlier rays.
Our Prophet said: “The breathings of the Lord your God,[254]
In these your days of pilgrimage, on all sides prod. 45
Your ears and minds lend ye to all signs of the times;
Perchance ye may inhale those breathings in these climes.”
One breathing came and found you. Straightway it was gone.
To all who sought, new life it gave. It then had done.
Another breathing’s come. Be ye not unprepared.
Ye may not let it go by. Something must be shared.
It found your souls on fire. ’Tis thence they cease to burn.
Your souls it found all corpses. Life it made return.
Your fiery souls by it all quickly were puffed out.
Dead souls of yours by it began aloud to shout. 50
Their present calm, and this vivacity’s from heaven;
Resembling not the turbulence by which man’s driven.
One breathing from the Lord, when blown on earth and air,
Ill qualities converts straight into all that’s fair.
For fear lest any breathing such as this thee shake,
Read thou the text: “They shunned the task to undertake.”[255]
Had not “they shrunk from it,” where now would’st thou have been?
Had they not feared, would’st thou this grade have ever seen?
But yesterday an opening gleamed for better things;
Till greed for fleshly morsels stopped the way of kings. 55