Sunday, September 21, 2008

Sounds Familiar

I seek the mystery of Life and Time,
The Key of all that is not and that is,
And that which -- climb, imagination! climb! --
Transcends them both -- the Mystical abyss
Where Mind and Being marry, and are Bliss.

~From Tannhauser: A Story of All Time

http://outercol.org/pdf/TANNHAUSER.pdf

A similarity I noticed, from Dedication:

I shall not tell thee that I love thee!
Nay! by the Star in Heaven burning,
Its ray to me at midnight turning
To tell me that it beams above thee --
Nay! though thou wert, as I am, yearning,
I should not tell thee that I love thee!

And from Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, one of my favorite poems:

I do not love thee! - no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.

I do not love thee! - yet, I know not why,
Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!

I do not love thee! - yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be near)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.

I do not love thee! - yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.

I know I do not love thee! - yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.

4 comments:

Alexander M Zoltai said...

Exquisite Poems !!!

Made me think of this:

"And if, by the help of God, he findeth on this journey a trace of the traceless Friend, and inhaleth the fragrance of the long-lost Joseph from the heavenly messenger, he shall straightway step into THE VALLEY OF LOVE and be dissolved in the fire of love. In this city the heaven of ecstasy is upraised and the world-illuming sun of yearning shineth, and the fire of love is ablaze; and when the fire of love is ablaze, it burneth to ashes the harvest of reason.

Now is the traveler unaware of himself, and of aught besides himself. He seeth neither ignorance nor knowledge, neither doubt nor certitude; he knoweth not the morn of guidance from the night of error. He fleeth both from unbelief and faith, and deadly poison is a balm to him. Wherefore Attar saith:

For the infidel, error -- for the faithful, faith;

For Attar's heart, an atom of Thy pain.

The steed of this Valley is pain; and if there be no pain this journey will never end. In this station the lover hath no thought save the Beloved, and seeketh no refuge save the Friend. 

At every moment he offereth a hundred lives in the path of the Loved One, at every step he throweth a thousand heads at the feet of the Beloved.

O My Brother! Until thou enter the Egypt of love, thou shalt never come to the Joseph of the Beauty of the Friend; and until, like Jacob, thou forsake thine outward eyes, thou shalt never open the eye of thine inward being; and until thou burn with the fire of love, thou shalt never commune with the Lover of Longing.

A lover feareth nothing and no harm can come nigh him: Thou seest him chill in the fire and dry in the sea.

A lover is he who is chill in hell fire;

A knower is he who is dry in the sea.

Love accepteth no existence and wisheth no life: He seeth life in death, and in shame seeketh glory. To merit the madness of love, man must abound in sanity; to merit the bonds of the Friend, he must be full of spirit. Blessed the neck that is caught in His noose, happy the head that falleth on the dust in the pathway of His love. Wherefore, O friend, give up thy self that thou mayest find the Peerless One, pass by this mortal earth that thou mayest seek a home in the nest of heaven. Be as naught, if thou wouldst kindle the fire of being and be fit for the pathway of love.

Love seizeth not upon a living soul,

The falcon preyeth not on a dead mouse.

Love setteth a world aflame at every turn, and he wasteth every land where he carrieth his banner. Being hath no existence in his kingdom; the wise wield no command within his realm. The leviathan of love swalloweth the master of reason and destroyeth the lord of knowledge. He drinketh the seven seas, but his heart's thirst is still unquenched, and he saith, "Is there yet any more?" He shunneth himself and draweth away from all on earth.

Love's a stranger to earth and heaven too;

In him are lunacies seventy-and-two.

He hath bound a myriad victims in his fetters, wounded a myriad wise men with his arrow. Know that every redness in the world is from  11  his anger, and every paleness in men's cheeks is from his poison. He yieldeth no remedy but death, he walketh not save in the valley of the shadow; yet sweeter than honey is his venom on the lover's lips, and fairer his destruction in the seeker's eyes than a hundred thousand lives.

Wherefore must the veils of the satanic self be burned away at the fire of love, that the spirit may be purified and cleansed and thus may know the station of the Lord of the Worlds.

Kindle the fire of love and burn away all things,

Then set thy foot into the land of the lovers.
(Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 11)

Sophia said...

Alex,

Who is the "Friend"? (I hope I haven't asked you this before. If I have, sometimes my memory needs a jolt or two.)

This line reminds me of my insatiable appetite for spiritual fulfillment:

"He drinketh the seven seas, but his heart's thirst is still unquenched, and he saith, 'Is there yet any more?'"

Alexander M Zoltai said...

The Friend is God...

~ Alex from Our Evolution

Sophia said...

Oh.

Leave it up to me to be totally blind to the obvious!