Why wilt thou dwell in mouldy cell, a captive, O my heart?

Speed, speed the flight! a nursling bright of yonder world thou art.

O contemplate thy true estate, enlarge thyself, and rove From this dark world, thy prison, whirled to the celestial grove.

O honoured guest in Love's high feast,
O bird of the angel sphere,
'Tis cause to weep, if thou wilt keep thy habitation here.
A voice at morn to thee is borne--
God whispers to the soul-- "If on the way the dust thou lay, thou soon wilt gain the goal."

The road be thine toward the Shrine! and lo, in bush and briar,
The many slain by love and pain in flower of young desire,
Who on the track fell wounded back and saw not, ere the end,
A ray of bliss, a touch, a kiss, a token of the Friend!

---

Like the rose I am laughing with all my body, not only with my mouth, because I am without myself, alone with the king of the world.

You who came with torch and at dawn ravished my heart, dispatch my soul after my heart, do not seize my heart alone.

Do not in rage and envy make my soul a stranger to my heart; do not leave the former here, and do not summon the latter alone.

Send a royal message, issue a general invitation; how long,
O sultan, shall the one be with you and the other alone?

If you do not come tonight as yesterday and close my lips,
I will make a hundered uproars, my soul, I will not lament alone.

Do you break our harp, exalted one; thousands of other harps are here.
Since we have fallen into the clutches of love, what matters if we lose harp or reed pipe?

If the whole world's rebeck and harp should be consumed, many a hidden harp there is, my friend;
The twanging and strumming mounts to the skies, even if it does not enter the ears of the deaf.
If the whole world's lamp and candle should flicker out, what cause for sorrow is that, since flint and steel still remain?
Songs are spindrift on the face of the sea; no pearl come on the surface of the sea;
Yet know that the grace of the spindrift derives from the pearl, the reflection of the reflection of whose gleam is upon us.
Songs are all but a branch of the yearning for union; branch and root are never comparable. Close your lips, and open the window of the heart; by that way be conversant with the spirits.

He comes, a moon whose like the sky ne'er saw, awake or dreaming,
Crowned with eternal flame no flood can lay. Lo, from the flagon of thy love,
O Lord, my soul is swimming,
And ruined all my body's house of clay!
When first the Giver of the grape my lonely heart befriended,
Wine fired my bosom and my veins filled up, But when his image all mine eye possessed, a voice descended: "Well done, O sovereign Wine and peerless Cup!

---

Love's mighty arm from roof to base each dark abode is hewing Where chinks reluctant catch a golden ray.
My heart, when Love's sea of a sudden burst into its viewing,
Leaped headlong in, with "Find me who may!" As, the sun moving, clouds behind him run, All the hearts attend thee, O Tabriz's Sun!

Ho, lovers, labour so that, when body and soul remain no more, your hearts may fly to heaven, not remain heavy like the body.
Wash your hearts and souls in the water of wisdom clean of dust, ho, that the two eyes of regreat may not remain turned towards the earth.
Is it not the case with everything in the world, that love is vital soul?
Apart from love, everything you see remains not eternally.
Your nonexistence (before birth) is as the east, your death is as the west, oriented to another heaven that resembles not this visible heaven.

The way to heaven is within; shake the wings of love --when love's wings have become strong, there is no need to trouble about a ladder.
Consider not the world that exists without, for the true world is within the eye; when you have shut your eyes on the world, the world will not remain.
Your heart is like a roof, and your sense ae watersprouts; drink water from the roof, for the waterspout remains not forever.
Recite entirely this ode from the tablet of the heart; regard not the tongue, for lips and tongue do not remain.
Man's body is a bow, breath and speech are its arrows; once the arrows are quiver have gone, no more work remains for the bow

Happy the moment when we are seated in the palace, thou and I,
With two forms and with two figures but with one soul, thou and I.
The colours of the grove and the voice of the birds will bestow immortality
At the time when we come into the garden, thou and I.
The stars of heaven will come to gaze upon us; We shall know them the moon itself, thou and I. Thou and I, individuals no more, shall be mingled in ectasy, Joyful, and secure from foolish babble, thou and I.
All the bright-plumed birds of heaven will devour their hearts with envy
In the place where we shall laugh in such a fashion, thou and I.
This is the greatest wonder, that thou and I, sitting here in the same nook,
Are at this moment both in Persia and Khorasan, thou and I.

---

Jelaluddin Rumi was born in the region today known as Afghanistan in 1207. Rumi following in his father's ancestoral line became a scholar until his meeting with the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz. Of this meeting Rumi said, "What I had thought of before as God, I met today in a person."

After Shams, Rumi's other strong influences were Saladin Zarkub, the goldsmith, and later his scribe, Husam. Rumi founded the Mevlevi Order of dervishes, better known as the Whirling Dervishes. Through a turning movement, body posturing, mental focus, and sound, the dervish achieves ecstasy through union with God.