Rumi's Masnavi - It would be a generous act if thou wouldst make me happy and kindly remember me early and late.

It would be a generous act if thou wouldst make me happy and kindly remember me early and late.

During (the period of) a (whole) day and night thou hast allowed me (only) breakfast-time for access (to thee), O well-wisher.

I feel in my liver five hundred cravings for drink, and bulimy (morbid hunger) is conjoined with every craving. 2690

Thou, O prince, art unconcerned with my passion: pay the poor-tax on thy high estate, look (kindly) on (this) poor wretch.

This poor unmannerly wretch is not worthy (of thy favour); but thy universal grace is superior to (regard for) that.

Thy universal grace requires no support (reason to justify it): a sun strikes (with its beams) on (all) ordures.

Its light suffers no loss thereby, and the ordure is made dry and (fit for) fuel,

So that the ordure goes into a bath-furnace, is converted into light, and illumines the door and wall of a bath-house. 2695

(Formerly) it was a defilement, now it has become an adornment, since the sun chanted that spell (exerted that powerful influence) upon it.

The sun also warms the belly of the earth, so that the earth consumes the remaining ordures.

They become a part of the earth, and herbage springs up from them: even so doth God wipe out evil actions.

To ordure, which is the worst (of things), He does this (favour), that He makes it herbage and narcissus and eglantine.

(Judge, then), what God bestows in (the way of) recompense and bounty on the eglantines (good works) of devotion (performed) faithfully. 2700

Since He confers such a robe of honour on the wicked, (consider) what He bestows on the righteous in the place where He waits (for them).

God gives them that which no eye hath beheld, that which is not comprehensible in any tongue or language.

Who are we to (aspire to) this? Come, my friend, make my day bright with (thy) goodly disposition.

Do not regard my ugliness and hatefulness, though I am as venomous as a mountain-snake.

Oh, I am ugly and all my qualities are ugly: since He planted me as a thorn, how should I become a rose? 2705

Bestow on the thorn the springtide of the rose's beauty: bestow on this snake the loveliness of the peacock!

I have reached the limit in perfection of ugliness: thy grace has reached the limit in excellence and accomplishment.

Do thou grant the boon sought by this consummate one from that consummate one, O thou who art the envy of the tall cypress.

When I die, thy bounty, though it is exempt from need, will weep for kindness' sake.

It will sit beside my grave a long while: tears will gush from its gracious eye. 2710

It will mourn for my deprivation (of beauty), it will shut its eyes to my abjectness.

Bestow a little of those favours now, put a few of those (kind) words as a ring into my ear!

That which thou wilt say (hereafter) to my dust—strew it (now) upon my sorrowful perception!”

How the mouse humbly entreated the frog, saying, “Do not think of pretexts and do not defer the fulfilment of this request of mine, for ‘there are dangers in delay,’ and ‘the Súfí is the son of the moment.’” A son (child) does not withdraw his hand from the skirt of his father, and the Súfí's kind father, who is the “moment,” does not let him be reduced to the necessity of looking to the morrow (but) keeps him all the while absorbed, unlike the common folk, in (contemplation of) the garden of his (the father's) swift (immediate) reckoning. He (the Súfí) does not wait for the future. He is of the (timeless) River, not of Time, for “with God is neither morn nor eve”: there the past and the future and time without beginning and time without end do not exist: Adam is not prior nor is Dajjál (Antichrist) posterior. (All) these terms belong to the domain of the particular (discursive) reason and the animal soul: they are not (applicable) in the non-spatial and non-temporal world. Therefore he is the son of that “moment” by which is to be understood only a denial of the division of times (into several categories), just as (the statement) “God is One” is to be understood as a denial of duality, not as (expressing) the real nature of unity.

A certain Khwája, accustomed to scatter (pieces of) silver, said to a Súfí, “O you for whose feet my soul is a carpet,

Would you like one dirhem to-day, my king, or three dirhems at breakfast-time to-morrow?” 2715

He replied, “I am more pleased with (the possession of) half a dirhem yesterday than with (the promise of) this (one dirhem) to-day and a hundred dirhems to-morrow.”

(The mouse said), “A slap (given) in cash (immediately) is better than a donation (paid) on credit (hereafter): lo, I put the nape of my neck before thee: give (me) the cash!

Especially as the slap is from thy hand, for both the nape and the slap inflicted on it are intoxicated (enraptured) with thee.

Hark, come, O soul of my soul and (O thou who art the soul) of a hundred worlds, gladly take the opportunity of (seizing) the cash of this (present) moment.

Do not stealthily remove thy moon-like face from the night-travellers, do not withdraw thyself from this river-bed, O flowing water, 2720

(But flow) in order that the river-bank may laugh (may be made to blossom) by the running water, and that jasmines may rear their heads on each brim of the river.”

When you see that verdure is fresh on the river-brim, then (you may) know (even) from afar that water is there.

The Maker hath said, “Their mark is (on) their faces,” for the verdant orchard tells a tale of rain.

If it rains during the night, no one sees (the rain), for (then) every soul and breath is asleep;

(But) the freshness of every beauteous rose-garden is (clear) evidence of the rain (that was) hidden (from view). 2725

(The mouse said), “O comrade, I am of the earth, thou art of the water; but thou art the king of mercy and munificence.

By way of (conferring) bounty and dispensing (favour) so act that I may attain to (the privilege of) serving thee early and late.

I am always calling thee on the river-bank with (all) my soul, (but) I never experience the mercy of response.

Entrance into the water is barred against me because my (bodily) frame has grown from a piece of earth.

Use the aid either of a messenger or a token to make thee aware of my (piteous) cry.” 2730

The two friends debated on this (matter): at the close of the debate it was settled

That they should procure a long string, in order that by pulling the string the secret should be revealed.

(The mouse said), “One end must be tied to the foot of this slave (who is bent) double, and the other (end) to thy foot,

That by this device we two persons may come together and mingle as the soul with the body.”

The body is like a string (tied) on the foot of the soul, drawing it (down) from Heaven to earth. 2735

When the frog-like soul escapes from the mouse-like body into the water, (which is) the sleep of unconsciousness, it enters into a happy state;

(But) the mouse-like body pulls it back with that string: how much bitterness does the soul taste from this pulling!