Page 147 - 47176

THE TAEJUMAX AL-ASHWAQ (X LV lIl) 135

siind-hills because of her neck and tlie loveliness of
her gestures.
8. ’Tis as though she were the morning sun in Aries, crossing
.the degrees of the zodiac at their farthest height.
9. If she lifts her veil or uncovei's her face, she holds cheap
the rays of the bright dawn.
10. I called to her, between the guarded pasture and Rdina,
‘ Who will help a man that alighted at Sal' in good hope ?
11. Who will help a man lo.st in a desert, dismayed, con-
. founded in his u^ts, miserable ?
12. AVho will help a man drowned in his tears, intoxicated
*by the wine of passion for those well-set teeth ?
13. Who will help a man burned by his sighs, distraught by
the beauty of those spacious eyebi’ows ? ’
14. The hands of Love have played at their will with his
heart, and he commits no sin in that which he seek.s.

COJIMEXTARY
1. ‘ Halt b^^^ the ban tree of al-Mudarraj ’ : he says,

addressing the Divine messenger which calls the aspirations
that seek to know and behold"' Him, ‘ Appear to me in
the station of self-subsistence and lovingkindness gradually
not suddenly, lest I perish'.’
2. ‘ And call to them,’ i.e. to the Divine Names.
3. ‘ Rama,’ one of the stations of abstraction and isolation.
‘ Between au-Naqtl and Hajir,’ between the white hill and
the most inaccessible veil, to which the hearts of mystics
contained in the hearts of some gnostics.
can never attain.
‘ A girl enclosed in a howdah,’ i.e. the Essential Knowledge

4. ‘ To one travelling in the dark,’ i.e. to tliose who ascend
and journey in the night (like the Prophet).
6. God is beyond the reach of mental ert’ort; He is revealed
by Divine favour to a heart empty of all thoughts.
8. ‘ Crossing the degrees of the zodiac,’ etc., in reference
to the magnification and glory which the seer feels in himself
as he continues to contemplate her.