Masnavi i Ma’navi: Teachings of Rumi

HEARKEN to the reed-flute, how it complains,Lamenting its banishment from its home:“Ever since they tore me from my osier bed,My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs,And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.He who abides far away from his homeIs ever longing for the day he shall return.My wailing is heard in every throng,In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.Each interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings,But not one fathoms the secrets of my heart.My secrets are not alien from my plaintive notes,Yet they are not manifest to the sensual eye and ear.Body is not veiled from soul, neither soul from body,Yet no man hath ever seen a soul.”