Rumi’s Love Poem
Love is best when mixed with anguish.
In our town, we won’t call you a Lover if you escape the pain.
Look for Love in this way, welcome it to your soul,
and watch your spirit fly away in ecstasy.
Love rests on no foundation.
It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end.
Imagine, a suspended ocean, riding on a cushion of ancient secrets.
All souls have drowned in it, and now dwell there.
One drop of that ocean is hope, and the rest is fear.
We are all powerless by Love’s game.
How can you expect us to behave and act modest?
How can you expect us to stay at home, like good little boys?
How can you expect us to enjoy being chained like mad men?
Oh, my Beloved, you will find us every night, on your street, with our eyes glued to your window, waiting for a glimpse of your radiant face.
Love came, and became like blood in my body.
It rushed through my veins and encircled my heart.
Everywhere I looked, I saw one thing. Love’s name written on my limbs, on my left palm, on my forehead, on the back of my neck, on my right big toe…
Oh, my friend, all that you see of me is just a shell, and the rest belongs to love.
I am in Love!
All this advise–what’s the use?
I have drunk poison.
All this sugar what’s the use?
You say hurry, tie up his feet.
But its my heart that’s gone crazy, all this rope around my feet–what’s the use?
I wish I could give you a taste of the burning fire of Love.
There is a fire blazing inside of me.
If I cry about it, or if I don’t, the fire is at work, night and day.
People make clothing to cover their intellect, but the heart of Lovers is a shroud, inflamed in golden hues of Love.
By day I praised you and never knew it.
By night I stayed with you and never knew it.
I always thought that I was me–but no,
I was you and never knew it.
This world is no match for your Love.
Being away from you is death aiming to take my soul away.
My heart, so precious, I won’t trade for a hundred thousand souls.
Your one smile takes it for free.
I saw Sorrow holding a cup of pain.
I said, hey sorrow, sorry to see you this way.
What’s troubling you?
What’s with the cup?
Sorrow said, what else can I do?
All this Joy that you have brought to the world has killed my business completely.
I sipped some of love’s sweet wine, and now I am ill.
My body aches, my fever is high.
They called in the doctor and he said,drink this tea!
Ok, time to drink this tea.
He said, Take these pills!
Ok, time to take these pills.
The doctor said, And get rid of the sweet wine of love’s lips!
Ok, time to get rid of the doctor.
This is a gathering of Lovers.
In this gathering there is no high, no low,no smart, no ignorant, no special assembly, no grand discourse, no proper schooling required.
There is no master, no disciple.
This gathering is more like a drunken party, full of tricksters, fools, mad men and mad women.
This is a gathering of Lovers.
Poet by Rumi
