Zinda-Rud Takes Leave of Highest Paradise and the Houris of Paradise Make Their Request

The glass of my patience and quietude was shattered; The Sage of Rum spoke in my ear, ‘Rise up’.

Ah, those words of love, that ecstatic certainty! Ah that court, that sublime palace;

Heart bleeding, I reached its gate and beheld there a throng of houris;

On their lips, ‘Zinda-Rud, Zinda-Rud, Zinda-Rud, master of fire and melody!’

Clamour and tumult rose from left and right: ‘One or two moments sit with us. sit with us!’

The traveller who knows the secrets of the journey fears the lodging-place more than the highwayman.

Love reposes not in separation, nor in union, reposes not, without Eternal Beauty;

First beginning, falling down before idols, final end, freedom from all heart-ravishers.

Love recks for nothing, and is ever on the move, a wayfarer in space and spacelessness.

Our creed, like the swift-paced wave: abandon the halting-place, choose the highway.

The Houris of Paradise Your blandishments are like those of Time; grudge us not now one sweet song.