HE WHO DIED AT AZAN SENDS

He made life-and he takes it- but instead

 Gives more; praise the restorer, Al-Mu'hid!

He who died at Azan sends

This to comfort faithful friends:

Faithful friends! it lies, I know.

Pale and white, and cold as snow;

And ye say, "Abdullah's dead!"

Weeping at my feet and head;

I can see your falling tears,

I can hear your cries and prayers;

Yet I smile and whisper this:

  I am not that thing you kiss;

Cease your tears, and let it lie;

It was mine, it is not I.”

Sweet friends, what the women lave,

For its last bed in the grave,

Is a tent which I am quitting,

Is a garment no more fitting,

Is a cage from which at last,

Like a hawk my soul hath passed.

Love the inmate. not the room;

The wearer. not the garb; the plume

Of the falcon, not the bars

Which kept him from those splendid stars.

Loving friends! be wise, and dry

Straightway every weeping eye;

What we lift upon the bier

Is not worth a wistful tear.

'Tis an empty seashell, one

 Out of which the pearl is gone;

The shell is broken, it lies there;

The pearl, the all, the soul, is here.

'Tis an earthen jar whose lid

Allah sealed, the while it hid

That treasure of his treasury,

A mind which loved Him; let it lie!

Let the chard be Earth's once more,

Since the gold shines in His store.

Allah Glorious! Allah Good!

Now Thy grace is understood;

Now my heart no longer wonders

What AI-Barsakh is, which sunders

Life from death and earth from heaven;

 Nor the "Paradises Seven"

Which the happy dead inherit;

Nor those "birds” which bear each spirit

 Toward the throne, "green birds and white,"

 Radiant, glorious, swift their flight!

Now the long, long darkness ends,

Yet ye wail, my foolish friends,

While the man whom ye call "dead"

 In unbroken bliss instead

Lives and loves you; lost, 'tis true,

By any light which shines for you;

 But in light ye cannot see

Of unfulfilled felicity,

And enlarging paradise,

Lives the life that never dies.

Farewell, friends! Yet not farewell;

Where I am, ye too shall dwell.

I am gone before your face,

A heart-beat's time, a gray ant's pace,

- -­

When ye come where I have stepped,

Ye will wonder why ye wept,

Ye will know, by true love taught,

 That here is all and there is naught.

 Weep awhile, if ye are fain,

Sunshine still must follow rain!

Only not at death, for death-

­Now I see- is that first breath

Which our souls draw when we enter

 Life. that is of all life center.

Know ye Allah's law is love,

 Viewed from Allah's throne above;

 Be ye firm of trust, and come

Faithful onward to your home!

"La Allah illa Allah ! Yea,

Mu'hid! Restorer! Sovereign!" say

He who died at Azan gave

This to those who made his grave.

 Sir Edwin Arnold in "Pearls of the Faith."