XIV

Introduction

Odes Part-I

• A blaze is raging near His Throne
• If the stars are astray
• Bright are Thy tresses, brighten them even more
• A free spirit I have. And seek no praise for it
• What avails love when life is so ephemeral?
• If my scattered dust turns into a heart again
• The world is tospy—turvy; the stars are wildly spinning
• O Cup—bearer! Give me again that wine of love for Thee
• My Lord has effaced the gulf between His world and mine
• Consuming fire for thee
• Dost Thou remember not my heart’s first rapture
• When flowers deck themselves into ruby bloom
• My power of making music
• I had believed my arena was under the starry heavens
• Reason is either luminous. Or it seeks proofs
• O Lord! This world of Thine has a winsome face

Odes Part-II

• Selfhood can demolish the magic of this world
• Who sings this poignant song, blithe in spirit
• The secret divine my ecstasy has taught
• O myriad–coloured earth
• Thou art yet region—bound
• The dervish, in his freedom
• The flowers are once more in radiant bloom
• Muslims are born with a gift to charm, to persuade
• It is love that infuses warmth into the music of life
• With a heart unknown to a flame
• The tongue and the heart
• These Western nymphs
• An illumined heart is supernal
• Selfhood is daring in power. But has no pride
• The leader is unworthy
• Winter winds pierced me like a sharp sword
• This ancient world
• The way to renounce is
• Reason is not far
• Selfhood is an ocean boundless, fathomless
• The morning breeze has whispered to me a secret
• Thy vision and "thy hands are chained," earth—bound
• The only treasure reason has, is knowledge
• Alexander’s burnished throne
• Thou art not for the earth
• In bondage of space
• Reason has bestowed on me the eye of the wise
• My plaint at last evoked
• The sun, "the moon," the stars
• Every object has the urge
• Is it a miracle,
• Why should I ask wise men about my origin?
• When the love of God teaches self—awareness
• Explore the mysteries of’ fate, as I have done
• This onrush of yearning
• Let thy reason be, close to nature
• Alas! These men of church and mosque are known
• Reason has devised again the magic of ancient days
• Beyond the stars there are
• The West seeks to make life a perpetual feast
• Selfhood is Gabriel’s power
• Does freshness of thought
• As captured in a mirror
• Sufis lack the fire, the passion that consumes
• Intuition in the West was clever in its power
• Cut the Gordian knot
• Neither the power of kings
• New worlds will he conquered
• Arise! The bugle calls! It is time to leave!
• The crescent has surpassed
• Do not get engrossed In the dawning day and night
• The training grounds of valour
• Salman the mellifluous
• Kings and crowns and armies
• Stanza: The style may not he vivid and lively, still

Quatrains

• All potent wine is emptied of Thy cask
• Make our hearts the seats of mercy and love
• Estranging are the ways in the holy precinct
• O wave! Plunge headlong into the dark seas
• Am I bound by space, "or beyond space?"

• I was in the solitude of Selfhood lost
• Confused is the nature of my love for Thee
• Faith survives in fire, like Abraham
• Observe the strains of' lily song:
• My nature is like the fresh breeze of morn
• A restless heart throb, in every atom
• Thy vision is not lofty, ethereal
• Neither the Muslim nor his power survives
• Selfhood in the world of men is prophethood
• Distracted are thy eyes in myriad ways
• The beauty of mystic love is shaped in song
• Where is the moving spirit of my life?
• I am not a pursuer, nor a traveller
• Thy bosom has breath; it does not have a heart
• Pure in nature thou art, thy nature is light
• Muslims have lost the passion of love they had
• Conquer the world with the power of Selfhood
• Dew—drops glisten on flowers that bloom in the spring
• Reason is but a wayside lamp that gives
• Give the young, O Lord, my passionate love for Thee
• Thine is the world of birds and beasts, O Lord!
• Thank Thee, O Lord, I am not without talent born
• He is the essence of the worlds of space and spirit
• Love is sometimes a wanderer in the woods
• Love seeks sometimes the solitude of hills
• Grant me the absorption of souls of the past
• It was Abul Hassan who stressed the truth
• This reason of mine knows not good from evil
• To be God is to do a million tasks
• So man is the powerful lord of land and seas!
• The mystic's soul is like the morning breeze
• That blood of pristine vigour is no more
• The movement of days and nights is eternal, fast
• Selfhood's apostate is the life of reason
• Thy body knows not the secrets of thy heart
• Stanza: Iqbal recited once in a garden in spring

Poems

• A Prayer
• The Mosque of Cordova
• Spain
• Tariq’s Prayer
• Lenin before God
• Song of the Angels
• Ecstasy
• To Javid
• Mendicancy
• The Mullah and Paradise
• Church and State
• The Earth is God's
• To a Young Man
• An Advice
• The Wild Flower
• To the ‘Saqi’
• This Age
• The Angels Bid Farewell to Adam
• Adam is Received by the Spirit of the Earth
• Rumi and Iqbal
• Gabriel and Satan
• Azan
• Love
• The Star's Message
• To Javid
• Philosophy and Religion
• A Letter from Europe
• At Napoleon’s Tomb
• To the Punjab Peasant
• Nadir Shah of Afghanistan
• The Tartar's Dream
• Worlds Apart
• Cinema
• To the Punjab Pirs
• Separation
• Monastery
• Satan’s Petition
• The Eagle
• The Rebellious Disciple
• Stanza: Barter not thy Selfhood for silver and gold
• Stanza: The mentor exhorted his. disciples once