Message From The East

The following are selective verses from Allama Mohammad Iqbal's:

"Payam-I-Mashriq"

(Message From The East)
Translated by: Hadi Hussain

--The world is under His proud power's sway,
Whom all things were created to obey.
The sun itself is nothing but a mark,
of long prostration on the brow of day!--

--The origin and the end this world-these
I do not seek; but I seek mysteries;
For I am myself one. Should the truth be
Unveiled, I would miss my uncertainties.--

--Life keeps expressing itself in new ways:
Content with one fixed form it never stays.
You have no spark in you if your today,
Is Just a copy of your yesterday.--

--O morning star, you came and swiftly fled,
Shocked, I suspect, to find us still in bed.
You keep to your course, always wide awake:
Of ours we, sleeping too long, lose the thread.--

--I hear a moth before creation prayed,
"For one bright moment, God, let me be made.
At daybreak cast away my ashes; but
For one night let my splendour be displayed"--

--O swift-winged bird, with your light weight,
You are the Joy of flying incarnate.
We are held down to earth by worldly greed:
You fly because your happy wings vibrate.--

--A stranger to your own identity,
You seek new paths to the stars in the sky.
Open your eyes to yourself like a seed,
So you come out of the earth a tree.--

--One morning in a garden, passing by,
I heard a bird perched on a high branch cry:
"Out with whatever you have inside you-
A song, a plaint, a dirge, a cry, a sigh"--

--To make you understand life's mystery,
I tell you one thing in all secrecy:
You die if you do not possess a soul;
But if you do, you live eternally.--