SEPTEMBER 2007

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Look! This is Love

by Maulana Jalalludin Rumi
Translated by Annemarie Schimmel

Look! This is Love — to fly toward the heavens,
To tear a hundred veils in ev’ry wink,
To tear a hundred veils at the beginning,
To travel in the end without a foot,
And to regard this world as something hidden
And not to see with one’s own seeing eye!
I said: “O heart, may it for you be blessed
To enter in the circle of the lovers,
To look from far beyond the range of eyesight,
To wander in the corners of the bosom!
O soul, from where has come to you this new breath?
O heart, from where has come this heavy throbbing?
O bird, speak now the language of the birds
Because I know to understand your secret!”
The soul replied: “Know, I was in God’s workshop
While He still baked the house of clay and water.
I fled from yonder workshop at a moment
Before the workshop was made and created.
I could resist no more. They dragged me hither
And they began to shape me like a ball!”

From Look! This Is Love by Rumi translated by Annemarie Schimmel © 1996.
Used by arrangement with Shambhala Publications Ltd., Boston, MA