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Masnawi

Listen to the reed how it narrates a tale
A tale of all the separations of which it complains.
Ever since they cut me from the reed-bed,
My lament has caused man and women to moan
I want a bosom torn by separations,
So I can utter to it the description of the pain of longing.
Whoever becomes distanced from his roots,
Seeks to return to the days of his union.
I joined every gathering uttering my lament,
Consorting with the joyous and the sorrowful.
Everyone befriended me following his own opinion,
No one sought the secrets from within me.
My secret is not far away from my lament,
Yet, eye and ear do not possess that light.
Body is not hidden from soul, nor soul from body,
Yet, none has the license to see the soul.
The cry of the reed is fire, not wind,
Whoso does not possess this fire may he be naught.
It is the fire of love that is in the reed,
It is the fervour of Love that is in the wine.
The reed is the comrade of everyone who has parted from a friend
Its strains have rent asunder our hearts.
Who has seen a poison and a remedy like the reed?
Who has seen a harmony’s companion and a yearning friend like the reed?
The confident of this consciousness is none other than the unconscious.
For the tongue has no client save the ear.
In our sorrow the days of our life become unseasonable,
The days have become fellow travelers of burning grief.
If our days are gone, let them go it matters not,
For you remain, and none as holy as you are.
Whoever is not a fish becomes sated with His water.
Whoever has no daily bread, finds the day long.
None that is raw understands the state of the ripe,
Hence my words must be brief. Farewell.
O Son, break the chains and be free,
How long will you continue to be a slave to silver and gold.
If you pour the sea into a pitcher,
How much will it hold? One day store.
The pitcher, the eye of the covetous never becomes full,
The oyster shell is not filled with pearls until it is contented.
Only he whose garment is rent by Love,
becomes purified of covetousness and every defect.
Hail to you O Love that brings us good gain,
O physician of all our ailments,
Our remedy of our pride and vein glory,
our Plato and our Galen.
Through love the earthly body has risen to the heavens,
The mountain began to dance and become nimble.
O lover, Love became the soul of Mount Sinai,
Mount Sinai became drunk and Moses fell into a swoon.
If my lips were to be joined with a kindred soul,
Like the reed I would tell all that could be told.
Whoever has become separated from one who speaks his language
Becomes dumb even though he has a hundred songs.
When the flower departs and the rose garden fades,
You hear no longer the story of the nightingale.
Everyone is a beloved, the lover is a veil,
The beloved is living, yet the lover is dead.
One who has no tendency for love,
becomes like a bird without feather, alas for him!
How can I have consciousness before and after,
If the light of my Friend is not before me and after me?
Love wills that this word be shown forth,
If the mirror does not reflect, how is that so?
Do you know why your mirror reflects nothing?
Because the rust is not cleared from its face