[Sunlight] O Beloved, Be Like That to Me

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O Beloved, Be Like That to Me

The flames that dance with love -
O Beloved, be like that to me.
The burning heat within the fire -
O Beloved, be like that to me.

My candle burns with longing.
It cries with tears of wax.
Like the wick of a melting candle -
O Beloved, be like that to me.

Now that we've joined the path of love
we cannot sleep at night.
At the drunken tavern, the drummer beats the drum -
O Beloved, be like that to me.

The night is dark, the lovers are awake.
Don't bother them with thoughts of sleep.
They want only to be here with us -
O Beloved, be like that to me.

Union is a raging river running toward the sea.
Tonight the moon kisses the stars,
Majnun becomes Layla -
O Beloved, be like that to me.

God has become everything.
He has graced this poet with kindness.
Everything I touch and see becomes the fire of love -
O Beloved, be like that to me.

-- Ode E117 (from Nevit O. Ergin's "Divan-i Kebir",
Volume 2*)
Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997

*Sunlight notes:

--Molana Rumi's collection of "ghazals" (which word
is translated variously as "odes" or "songs", is known both as
the "Divan-e Shams" and as the "Divan-e Kebir".

-- Nevit O. Ergin, M.D., was born in Turkey in 1928, and resides in
California. He has worked with an organization called the Society
for Understanding Mevlana (the Turkish pronunciation of
"Molana"), as well as with the Turkish Ministry of Culture. Dr. Ergin
translates into English from the Turkish translations of Abdulbak
Golpinarli (1900-1982, Turkish), though he states that he compares
the Golpinarli translations with the original Persian when developing
his English translations. Erin's collection of ghazals is the largest available in English --by contrast, Arberry's two-volume set of ghazals provides only 400 of the3200-plus lyrical poems of the Diwan. (Note extracted from "Rumi Past and Present, East and West, by Franklin D. Lewis.)

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[Sunlight] O Beloved, Be Like That to Me