Rumi's poems (800 years ago)

Rumi Love and Ecstasy Poems

The following is a collection of Rumi's ecstatic love poems, translated by Coleman Barks and Shahram Shiva.

He spoke of lover and beloved as well as Lover and Beloved.
He was in touch with them being the same, and both as being one.


The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

==
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva

==

When I am with you, we stay up all night,
When you're not here, I can't get to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

==

Suddenly the drunken sweetheart appeared out of my door.
She drank a cup of ruby wine and sat by my side.
Seeing and holding the lockets of her hair
My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva

==

I have phrases and whole pages memorized,
but nothing can be told of love.
You must wait until you and I
are living together.
In the conversation we'll have
then...be patient...then.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

==

A Smile and A Gentleness
There is a smile and a gentleness
inside. When I learned the name
and address of that, I went to where
you sell perfume. I begged you not
to trouble me so with longing. Come
out and play! Flirt more naturally.

Teach me how to kiss. On the ground
a spread blanket, flame that's caught
and burning well, cumin seeds browning,
I am inside all of this with my soul.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

==

When the sweet glance of my true love caught my eyes,
Like alchemy, it transformed my copper-like soul.
I searched for Him with a thousand hands,
He stretched out His arms and clutched my feet.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva

==

With the Beloved's water of life, no illness remains
In the Beloved's rose garden of union, no thorn remains.
They say there is a window from one heart to another
How can there be a window where no wall remains?

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva

==

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

==

When your chest is free of your limiting ego,
Then you will see the ageless Beloved.
You can not see yourself without a mirror;
Look at the Beloved, He is the brightest mirror.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva

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