Rumi's Poetry

Rumi's poetry is so deep it touches a part of me that is unnamable. His sweetness, truth, depth, and soul, are incomparable. I know that for many of you poetic readers out there, Rumi is at the top of your list. His poetry is like a balm on my soul, and every time I read it it almost makes me weep, no matter what my mood is. Rumi's work enwraps my soul with its sweetness, as though tasting pure honey when my mouth is bitter.

I found some of his work on the internet (http://www.khamush.com/love_poems.html) and thought I might share them with you.

Enjoy.

Love is the Water of Life

Everything other than love for the most beautiful God

though it be sugar- eating.

What is agony of the spirit?

To advance toward death without seizing

hold of the Water of Life.

Masnawi I 3686-87

The beauty of the heart

is the lasting beauty:

its lips give to drink

of the water of life.

Truly it is the water,

that which pours,

and the one who drinks.

All three become one when

your talisman is shattered.

That oneness you can't know

by reasoning.

- Mathnawi II, 716-718

(Untitled)

The intellectual is always showing off,

the lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away.

afraid of drowning;

the whole business of love

is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose;

lovers are ashamed to rest.

The lover is always alone.

even surrounded by people;

like water and oil, he remains apart.

The man who goes to the trouble

of giving advice to a lover

get nothing. He's mocked by passion.

Love is like musk. It attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

- Kulliyat-e Shams, 21

Passion

Passion makes the old medicine new:

Passion lops off the bough of weariness.

Passion is the elixir that renews:

how can there be weariness

when passion is present?

Oh, don't sigh heavily from fatigue:

seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!

- Mathnawi VI, 4302-4304

Because I cannot sleep

I make music at night.
I am troubled by the one
whose face e has the color of spring flowers.
I have neither sleep nor patience,
neither a god reputation nor disgrace.
A thousand robes of wisdom are gone.
All my good manners have moved a thousand miles away.
The heart and the mind are left angry with each other.
The starts and the moon are envious of each other.
Because of this alienation the physical universe
is getting tighter and tighter.
The moon says, "How long will I remain
suspended without a sun?"
Without Love's jewel inside of me,
let the bazaar of my existence by destroyed stone by stone.
O Love, You who have been called by a thousand names,
You who know how to pour the wine
into the chalice of the body,
You who give culture to a thousand cultures,
You who are faceless but have a thousand faces,
O Love, You who shape the faces
of Turks, Europeans, and Zanzibaris,
give me a glass from Your bottle,
or a handful of bheng from Your Branch.
Remove the cork once more.
Then we'll see a thousand chiefs prostrate themselves,
and a circle of ecstatic troubadours will play.
Then the addict will be breed of craving.
and will be resurrected,
and stand in awe till Judgement Day.

-No author mentioned

With Purpose, Passion, and Love,

Frédéric Byé