ODE FROM SENNA
Now that I am tied and tangled in Thy floating hair,
Am become Thy half-crazed lover, with peace of mind at war,
Life in hand I stray and wander, looking for Thee everywhere.
Thou art Egypt's beauteous Joseph, I the wife of Potiphar;
Like that grayhair who bought Joseph, I would suffer for Thy face.
When the pangs of longing for Thee struck the knocker on my door,
From within me faith and reason fled their home.
Then in the wineshop of Thy love I drank my own heart's core.
All for Thee, O spirit's guide, I emptied out this room —
Now behold me mocked and mad and half seas over for Thy face.
In the Magians’ secret tavern, O sweet the brimming glass,
O sweet it is to seize Thy snaring hair.
O sweet for me to weep out my blood as along love's way I pass,
Sweet to receive this cup from Thee with no outsiders there,
And my eyes athirst since time began, drinking in Thy face.
Except for Thee, for neither world have I a care,
From any words save Thine, from all desire free,
A distracted lover I — of men's lives I've no share,
I, but the dust beneath Thy feet, O swaying cypress tree,
For me there is no place of flowers except Thy face.
O good is this tossing and turning on the sickbed of love,
Sickness that never will heal, but by love's crying.
Though reason warn me as to the perils of love,
Against the anguish of love I am not one to be sighing —
I, bound from time's dawning to the hyacinth hair that frames Thy face.
When like Majnum I fled to the desert of the mad,
I set the sand on fire with my burning sighs.
I put men out of my heart but Thee, and was glad,
And my cupped hands brimmed with tears from weeping eyes,
And I thought, let all men know that I love Thy wondrous face.
The day I filled my glass with Thy love's wine,
This tavern-corner gloried over Heaven's dome.
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Yes, the envy of Heaven would be this ruined heart of mine
Should Thy bright brow shed its rays into my lowly room —
Therefore my soul's eye never leaves Thy matchless face.
As the Sun of Truth rose out of this earthly world of His,
He opened up before Thee His secret treasure-store.
The effulgence of Thy beauty flashed from that world into this,
And from nothingness, the Divine Decree stood humbly at Thy door,
And said: “Obedient to Thy wish and will, I bow before Thy face.”
O people of Bahá, the Covenant hath come, be glad!
He is the balm for every aching heart,
And now is the earth in His Father's splendor clad.
When He unto my soul a welcome did impart,
It answered: “Save me! for I drown in the ocean of Thy face.”
Save me, great Mystery of God, I faint and fall.
Save me, without Thee I only burn and sigh.
Save me, I am as nothing in the eyes of all,
Save me, in every city: “He is mad!” they cry,
Of this lost, distracted wanderer in the desert of Thy face.
O Thou, O Thou from whose sunbright brow the moon hath drawn her rays,
The thought of whom illumines many a weary lover's soul,
But to behold Thy face I have no dream in all my days.
Then fulfill my hopes, in grace, grant me leave to reach my goal,
A desert wanderer I, and yearning for the garden of Thy face.
Without Thee, only a prison to me is Heaven and its flowers,
Without Thee, only a place of thorns, the blissful bowers.
O Thou whose brow so moonlight fair is the envy of spring hours,
In his love for Thee,
He is torn free,
Is Isti‘ál, from all that be,
And again and again,
Cries this refrain:
I am lost in the glory of Thy face.