[Sunlight] "Don't go to sleep" -- Ghazal 2232

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Here, Sunlight offers Ghazal (Ode) 2232, from Molana Jalal al-Din Rumi's "Divan" (known variously as the "Divan-e Kabir", or the
"Divan-e Shams"), in versions by Helminski and Barks; and in
translation by A.J. Arberry:

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"Search the Darkness"

Sit with your friends; don't go back to sleep.
Don't sink like a fish to the bottom of the sea.

Surge like an ocean,
don't scatter yourself like a storm.

Life's waters flow from darkness.
Seach the darkness, don't run from it.

Night travelers are full of light,
and you are, too; don't leave this companionship.
Be a wakeful candle in a golden dish,
don't slip into the dirt like quicksilver.

The moon appears for night travelers,
Be watchful when the moon is full.

-- Version by Kabir Helminski
"Love is a Stranger"
Threshold Books, 1993

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"The Ocean Moving All Night"

Stay with us. Don't sink to the bottom
like a fish going to sleep.
Be with the ocean moving steadily all night,
not scattered like a rainstorm.

The spring we're looking for
is somewhere in this murkiness.
See the night-lights up there traveling together,
the candle awake in its gold dish.

Don't slide into the cracks of ground like spilled mercury.
When the full moon comes out, look around.

-- Version by Coleman Barks
(from a translation by John Moyne)
"Open Secret"
Threshold Book, 1984

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Sit with your comrades, do not go to sleep; do not go to the
bottom of the sea like a fish.
Be surging all night like the sea; no, do not go scattered like a
torrent.
Is not the water of life in darkness? Seek in darkness and do
not hurry away.
The nightfarers of heaven are full of light; you too, go not away
from the company of your companions.
Is not the wakeful candle in a golden dish? Go not into earth
like quicksilver.
The moon shows its face to the night-travelers; be watchful,
on the night of moonshine do not go.

-- Translation by A. J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
The University of Chicago Press, 1991

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[Sunlight] "Don't go to sleep" -- Ghazal 2232