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Translated by E. Arnold
HE who died at Azim sends | |
| This to comfort all his friends: | |
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| Faithful friends! It lies, I know, | |
| Pale and white and cold as snow; | |
| And ye say, “Abdallah ’s dead!” | 5 |
| Weeping at the feet and head. | |
| I can see your falling tears, | |
| I can hear your sighs and prayers; | |
| Yet I smile and whisper this,— | |
| “I am not the thing you kiss: | 10 |
| Cease your tears, and let it lie; | |
| It was mine, it is not I.” | |
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| Sweet friends! what the women lave, | |
| For the last sleep of the grave, | |
| Is a hut which I am quitting, | 15 |
| Is a garment no more fitting, | |
| Is a cage from which, at last, | |
| Like a bird, my soul hath passed. | |
| Love the inmate, not the room, | |
| The wearer, not the garb,—the plume | 20 |
| Of the eagle, not the bars | |
| That kept him from those splendid stars. | |
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| Loving friends! Be wise and dry | |
| Straightway every weeping eye: | |
| What ye lift upon the bier | 25 |
| Is not worth a single tear. | |
| ’T is an empty sea-shell,—one | |
| Out of which the pearl has gone: | |
| The shell is broken, it lies there; | |
| The pearl, the all, the soul, is here. | 30 |
| ’T is an earthen jar, whose lid | |
| Allah sealed, the while it hid | |
| That treasure of his treasury, | |
| A mind that loved him: let it lie! | |
| Let the shards be earth’s once more, | 35 |
| Since the gold is in his store! | |
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| Allah glorious! Allah good! | |
| Now thy world is understood; | |
| Now the long, long wonder ends; | |
| Yet ye weep, my foolish friends, | 40 |
| While the man whom ye call dead, | |
| In unspoken bliss, instead, | |
| Lives and loves you; lost, ’t is true, | |
| For the light that shines for you: | |
| But in the light ye cannot see | 45 |
| Of undisturbed felicity,— | |
| In a perfect paradise, | |
| And a life that never dies. | |
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| Farewell, friends! But not farewell; | |
| Where I am, ye too shall dwell. | 50 |
| I am gone before your face, | |
| A moment’s worth, a little space. | |
| When ye come where I have stepped, | |
| Ye will wonder why ye wept; | |
| Ye will know, by true love taught, | 55 |
| That here is all, and there is naught. | |
| Weep awhile, if ye are fain,— | |
| Sunshine still must follow rain; | |
| Only not at death,—for death, | |
| Now we know, is that first breath | 60 |
| Which our souls draw when we enter | |
| Life, which is of all life centre. | |
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| Be ye certain all seems love, | |
| Viewed from Allah’s throne above; | |
| Be ye stout of heart, and come | 65 |
| Bravely onward to your home! | |
| La il Allah! Allah la! | |
| O love divine! O love alway! | |
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| He who died at Azim gave | |
| This to those who made his grave. | 70 |
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