Page 144 - 47176

132 THE TARJUMAX AL-ASHWAQ (XLVl)

evidence of the bees is the Avliite lioney wliich tliey
produce.
3. Full-ankled, a darkiie.s.s o’er a moon ; in her cheek a red
blush; slie is a bough growing on hills.
4. Beautiful, decked with ornaments; she is not wedded; she
shows teeth like hail.^tones for lustre and poolne.ss.
5. She keeps aloof in earnest, though she plays at loving in
jest; and death lies between that earnest and jest.
6. Never did the night darken but there came, following it,
the breath of dawn : ’tis known from of old.
7. And never do the East winds pa.ss over meadows
containing coy virgins with swelling breasts
8. But they bend the branches and whisper, as they blow,
of the flowery scents wliich they carry.
9. I asked the East wind to give me news of them. The
wind said, ‘ What need hast thou of the news ?
10. I left the pilgrims in al-Abraqan and in Birk al-Ghinuld
and in Birk al-Ghamim near at hand ;
11. They are not settled in any country,’ I said to the
wind, ‘ Where can they take refuge when the steeds
of my desire are pursuing them ? ’
12. Far be the thought! They have no abode save my mind.
Wherever I am, there is the full moon. Watch and see!
13. Is not my imagination her place of rising and my heart
her place of setting ? for the ill-luck of the hdu and
(jlucrah trees hath ceased.
14. The raven does not croak in our encampments or make
1. He says: ‘ There is a war of love between the world of
any rift in the harmony of our union.

C o m .mp: n t a r y

intermixture and cohesion and the Divine Ideas, because this
world desires and loves them inasmuch as its life is wholly
derived from their beholding it. Nothing but this natural
world hinders the hearts of gnostics from perceiving the
Divine Ideas; accordingly the heart is in woe and di.sti’ess
because of the war that continually exists between them.’