Don't weep. The joy that has gone will come 'round again in another form...by Rumi

Don't weep.
The joy that has gone
will come 'round again in another form -
Have no doubt about this!


A child's first joy comes from its mother's milk;
After the child is weaned
his joy comes from drinking sweet wine.


This supreme joy has no resting place -
It enters one form then another,
from box to box -
an eternal movement between heaven and earth.


Here it comes, pouring down from the sky,
seeping into the earth,
and rising up again as a bed of roses.


Now it is water, now a plate of rice,
Now the swaying trees, now a horse and rider.
It lies within these forms for awhile
then bursts forth to become something new.


Isn't this like our dreams? -
The body sleeps
while the soul moves onto take other forms.

You say,
I dreamt I was a cypress, a bed of tulips,
the blossoms of roses and jasmines.
Then the soul returns, and you wake up -
the cypress is gone, the roses are gone.



I tell you truly,
everything you now see will vanish like a dream.
I do not mean to trouble you,
O friend, with words so bold as these.
Perhaps you will only listen to Beloved.
He speaks more gently than I.


But how will you ever hear Him with
All that blathering going on? -
Everyone is speaking about golden bread
yet no one has ever tasted it!


O my soul,
where can I find rest
but in the shimmering love of his heart?
Where can I see the pure light of the Sun
but in the eyes of my own Beloved ?

~ Rumi
Version by Jonathan Star
"A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi"
Art by Jereme Crow