a living flame

Love's valley is the next, and here desire

Will plunge the pilgrim into seas of fire,

Until his very being is en-flamed

And those whom fire rejects turn back ashamed.

The lover is a man who flares and burns,

Whose face is fevered, who in frenzy yearns,

Who knows no prudence, who will gladly send

A hundred worlds toward their blazing end,

Who knows of neither faith nor blasphemy,

Who has no time for doubt or certainty,

To whom both good and evil are the same,

And who is neither, but a living flame.

But you! Lukewarm in all you say or do,

Backsliding, weak - oh no, this is not you!

True lovers give up everything they own

To steal one moment with the Friend alone -

They make no vague, procrastinating vow,

But risk their livelihood and risk it now.

Until their hearts are burned, how can they flee

From their desire's incessant misery?

They are the falcon when it flies distressed

In circles, searching for its absent nest -

They are the fish cast up upon the land

That seeks the sea and shudders on the sand.

Love here is fire; its thick smoke clouds the head -

When love has come the intellect has fled;

It cannot tutor love, and all its care

Supplies no remedy for love's despair.

If you could seek the unseen you would find

Love's home, which is not reason or the mind,

And love's intoxication tumbles down

The world's designs for glory and renown -

If you could penetrate their passing show

And see the world's wild atoms, you would know

That reason's eyes will never glimpse one spark

Of shining love to mitigate the dark.

Love leads whoever starts along our Way;

The noblest bow to love and must obey -

But you, unwilling both to love and tread

The pilgrim's path, you might as well be dead!

The lover chafes, impatient to depart,

And longs to sacrifice his life and heart.

~ Farid Attar

translated by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

from The Conference of Birds