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Sunlight presents Ode 3079 - in a version by Coleman Barks and in a translation by A.J. Arberry:
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MEADOWSOUNDS
We've come again to that knee of seacoast
no ocean can reach.
Tie together all human intellects.
They won't stretch to here.
The sky bares its neck so beautifully,
but gets no kiss. Only a taste.
This is the food that everyone wants,
wandering the wilderness, "Please give us
your manna and quail."
We're here again with the beloved.
This air, a shout. These meadowsounds,
an astonishing myth.
We've come into the presence of the one
who was never apart from us.
When the waterbag is filling, you know
the water carrier's here!
The bag leans lovingly against your shoulder.
"Without you I have no knowledge,
no way to reach anyone."
When someone chews sugarcane,
he's wanting this sweetness.
Inside this globe the soul roars like thunder.
And now silence, my strict tutor.
I won't try to talk about Shams.
Language cannot touch that presence.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
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We have come once again to a lord to whose knee no sea
reaches.
Tie together a thousand minds, they will not reach Him; how
shall a hand or foot reach the moon in heaven?
The sky stretched out its throat eagerly to Him; it found no
kiss, but it swallowed a sweetmeat.
A thousand throats and gullets stretched towards His lip.
"Scatter too on our heads manna and quails."
We have come again to a Beloved, from whose air a shout has
reached our ears.
We have come again to that sanctuary to bow the brow which
is to surpass the skies.
We have come again to that meadow to whose bolbol `anqa is
a slave.*
We have come to Him who was never apart from us; for the
waterbag is never filled without the existence of a water-carrier.
The bag always clings to the body of the water-carrier, saying,
"Without you, I have no hand or knowledge or opinion."
We have come again to that feast with the sweet dessert of
which the sugarcane chewer attained his desire.
We have come again to that sphere, in whose bent the soul
roars like thunder.
We have come again to that love at whose contact the div has
become peri-like.
Silence! Seal the rest under your tongue, for a jealous tutor
has been put in charge of you.
Speak not of the talk of the Pride of Tabriz, Shams-e Din, for
the rational mind is not suitable for that speech.
-- Translation by A. J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
The University of Chicago Press, 1991
* Anqa or Simorg is the legendary bird by which the Sufis sometimes
represent the unknown God. Simorg is sometimes considered to symbolize
the perfect man.
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