"Do not seize my heart alone"

Here, Sunlight offers Rumi's Ghazal (Ode) 84, in an
interpretative translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam
Mafi, and in translation by A.J. Arberry:


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I smile like a flower not only with my lips
but with my whole being
for I am alone with the King and
have lost myself in him.

At dawn your flame seized my heart
but left behind my body.
I will shout and raise havoc until
you come back for me tonight.

My Beloved, do not let anger estrange my heart
be generous, invite me to your feast.
Let no one be deprived of the joy
of your company.

-- Translated by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
Rumi: Hidden Music
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001

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Like the rose I am laughing with all my body, not
only with my mouth, because I am without myself, alone
with the king of the world.
You who came with torch and at dawn ravished
my heart, dispatch my soul after my heart, do not seize
my heart alone.
Do not in rage and envy make my soul a stranger
to my heart; do not leave the former here, and do not
summon the latter alone.
Send a royal message, issue a general invitation;
how long, O sultan, shall the one be with you and the
other alone?
If you do not come tonight as yesterday and close
my lips, I will make a hundred uproars, my soul, I will
not lament alone.

-- Translation by A.J. Arberry
Mystical Poems of Rumi 1
The University of Chicago Press 1968/1991

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"Do not seize my heart alone"