Mehr-e-roshan

An Inquiry to the Sleepers in Dust

The shining sun has gone from sight, the veil is lifted from the face of night, Upon existence’s shoulder, see, the tresses of the eve hang free.

For whom does it prepare this dark array, this robe of grey? All Nature’s court is mourning for the sun, now passed away.

The heavens cast a spell with speaking art, The sorcerer of night now holds the wakeful watcher’s heart.

The wave of air in silent seas is drowned and can't be found, And yet from far away there comes a caravan bell's sound.

My heart, restless with love, which from the world does turn, Has pulled me far from all its noise, for solitude to yearn.

I am a witness to this scene of fated loss and pain, A friend to those who in the lonely corner have long lain.

O restless heart, be still! And let me sit a space, And let me shed a few salt tears upon this silent place.

O you, drunk on the wine of sleep, where is it that you dwell? Say something of that other land, the final tales you tell.

Is it a house of wonder, too, of future and of past? A spectacle where warring elements are also cast?

Is humankind there also trapped in sorrow’s fortress wall? In that domain, is the human heart still held in thrall?

Does there the moth still perish in the candle's burning fire? Does that garden know the tale of rose and nightingale's desire?

Here, from a single verse, the heart can leap right from the breast; By poetry's great warmth, is there the soul likewise impressed?

The bonds of kinship here are torments for the soul's affair; In that garden, are there also piercing thorns like these to bear?

In this world, one life bears a hundred woes it must abide; In that land, is the soul from such anxieties untied?

Is there lightning, and the farmer, and the harvest waiting near? Are there caravans, and with them, is the robber's threat still clear?

Do they gather twigs there also, for a nest to call their own? Do they worry over brick and clay to build a house of stone?

Is man a stranger to his essence in that place as well? Are they mad for creed and nation, caught within that frantic spell?

Does the garden weep there at the nightingale's lament? And like this world, is the heart there with sorrow also rent?

Is Paradise a garden, or a stage of final rest? Or the unveiled face of Beauty Eterne, made manifest?

Is Hell a mechanism just to burn all sin away? In its flames, does a lesson to impart hold hidden sway?

Instead of walking, in that land, do you take flight? What is this secret, which we men on earth call death's long night?

The source of my heart’s restlessness is all that is and seems; Is human knowledge also limited in that realm of dreams?

Does the long-parted heart find solace in that final sight? Or does its Sinai also cry, 'Lan Tarani', from the height?

Does the soul find its rest from searching, in that final sphere? Is man a victim of his thirst for questions, even there?

Ah! Is that kingdom also filled with darkness and with night? Or is it, head to toe, ablaze with Love’s transcendent light?

Reveal the secret that this turning dome has kept concealed, For Death is but a piercing thorn in human hearts, unhealed.