‘Abdu’l-Baha tells us that : “At one time, Bahá’u’lláh had
written down an ode of Rúmí’s for him, [Ustád Ismá’íl] and had told him to turn
his face toward the Báb and sing the words, set to a melody. And so as he wandered
through the long dark nights, Ustád would sing these lines:
I am lost, O Love, possessed and dazed,
Love’s fool am I, in all the earth.
They call me first among the crazed,
Though I once came first for wit and worth.
O Love, who sellest me this wine, [1]
O Love, for whom I burn and bleed,
Love, for whom I cry and pine—
Thou the Piper, I the reed.
If Thou wishest me to live,
Through me blow Thy holy breath.
The touch of Jesus Thou wilt give
To me, who’ve lain an age in death.
Thou, both End and Origin,
Thou without and Thou within—
From every eye Thou hidest well,
And yet in every eye dost dwell.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘Memorials of the Faithful’)
[1] This wine, Rúmí says elsewhere, comes from the jar of “Yea
verily.” That is, it symbolizes the Primal Covenant established between God and
man on the day of “Am I not your Lord?” On that day, the Creator summoned
posterity out of the loins of Adam and said to the generations unborn, “Am I
not your Lord?” Whereupon they answered, “Yea, verily, Thou art.” Cf. Qur’án
7:171.
