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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Salaman and Absal: an Allegory SALÁMÁN AND ABSÁL I PROLOGUE Oh Thou whose Memory quickens Lovers’ Souls, Whose Fount of Joy renews the Lover's Tongue, Thy Shadow falls across the World, and They Bow down to it; and of the Rich in Beauty Thou art the Riches that make Lovers mad. Not till thy Secret Beauty through the Cheek Of Laila smite does she inflame Majnún, And not till Thou have sugar’d Shírín's Lip The Hearts of those Two Lovers fill with Blood.

For Lov’d and Lover are not but by Thee, Nor Beauty;-Mortal Beauty but the Veil Thy Heavenly hides behind, and from itself Feeds, and our Hearts yearn after as a Bride That glances past us Veil’d-but ever so As none the Beauty from the Veil may know. How long wilt thou continue thus the World To cozen with the Fantom of a Veil From which Thou only peepest?-Time it is To unfold thy perfect Beauty.

I would be Thy Lover, and Thine only-I, mine Eyes Seal’d in the Light of Thee to all but Thee, Yea, in the Revelation of Thyself Self-Lost, and Conscience-quit of Good and Evil. Thou movest under all the Forms of Truth, Under the Forms of all Created Things; Look whence I will, still nothing I discern But Thee in all the Universe, in which Thyself Thou dost invest, and through the Eyes Of Man, the subtle Censor scrutinize.

To thy Harím Dividuality No Entrance finds-no Word of This and That; Do Thou my separate and Derivéd Self Make one with thy Essential! Leave me room On that Diván which leaves no Room for Two; Lest, like the Simple Kurd of whom they tell, I grow perplext, Oh God! ’twixt "I" and "Thou;" If I-this Dignity and Wisdom whence? If Thou-then what this abject Impotence? A Kurd perplext by Fortune's Frolics Left his Desert for the City.

Sees a City full of Noise and Clamour, agitated People, Hither, Thither, Back and Forward Running, some intent on Travel, Others home again returning, Right to Left, and Left to Right, Life-disquiet everywhere! Kurd, when he beholds the Turmoil, Creeps aside, and, Travel-weary, Fain would go to Sleep; "But," saith he, "How shall I in all this Hubbub "Know myself again on waking?" So by way of Recognition Ties a Pumpkin round his Foot, And turns to Sleep.

A Knave that heard him Crept behind, and slily watching Slips the Pumpkin off the Sleeper's Ancle, ties it round his own, And so down to sleep beside him.