CHISHTI POETRY
(page 2)

Has my Friend intoxicating eyes
Or has He eyes like the ruby red poppy?

Since the image of my Friend in my heart resides
Now one heart has a thousand eyes.

Now no need of wine have I
Now my Friend and I share four eyes.

Why search for vessels and decanters,
When my Friend has such rapturous eyes?

To You the drunken tavern is sacrificed,
So drenched with spirits are your eyes.

My head is alms upon Your feet,
Upon Your face I sacrifice my eyes.

The world of light from which all brightness shines:
You have that world’s illuminating eyes.

These sad eyes in which You always dance,
These eyes are agitated eyes.

Come my Friend, come and come again in my eyes!
I long my Friend, I long with sorrow filled eyes.

Khadim, with hope for the sight of my Friend,
All my being longs with exasperated eyes.

Since love, o Khadim, for Someone awoke,
There is no moment without weeping eyes.

Naghma-e-dard 97

Cupbearer, this prosperous tavern flourishes with your spirit.
You are the beauty of the goblet, you are the verdance of the tavern.

You are the invigoration of every eye, in every heart you dwell.
To you is the consecration of every soul, to you each head is given.

Your lovers are strangers to this world, even strangers to religion,
Inebriated madmen, drunk on your affection.

Kind cupbearer, pour all the tavern’s spirits into my cup.
This drunkard has thirsted for your spirit for ages.

He is indifferent to you, who is infatuated with everyone.
The one you choose, to you belongs his fascination.

I too drank when I was filled by my Friend.
Now my fortune’s turned, now the cupbearer never returns.

Every heart, infidel or believer, adores you.
You are the desire of the ka’ba, the splendour of the temple.

I am a stone in Khwaja’s threshold, dust on Uthman’s doorsill.
My religion is love, my cult licentiousness.

What could I possibly give you to honour you?
This impoverished man has nothing but a pining heart.

I am Khadim, I am a servant of Khwaja, I am a slave of Uthman.
A faqir hides within my princely countenance.

Naghma-e-dard 108

Gradually, gradually over time Majnun’s love the beauty of Laila becomes
By lover’s effacing, erasing himself his Beloved’s exalted beauty becomes.

In your luminous, lustre-filled face Allah’s elegant grandeur shines.
Your ardent worshipper by love a saintly man of Allah becomes.

He who to the world utterly worthless becomes,
He in love’s court a stunning star becomes.

All your adornments embodied in myself,
With the grace of love’s beauty, beauty’s emperor I become.

My heart is astonished, o Khadim, with the sight of Someone.
With the sight of Someone, Someone’s beholder a seer becomes.

Sahifa-e-maani 15

O, magician, are your eyes a tavern charming wisdom away
Or goblets whose measure’s exhilaration?

So perfect is your prominence, o Pir,
The realm of drunkenness dies for you

All wine lovers so maddened with love,
To you do ransom their tavern.

Cupbearer with bewitching eyes your spirits fulfil me!
My eyes are dry goblets, before me the tavern lies.

Clouds of mercy are spreading, raining love’s wine,
On my head is Saqi’s shadow, beneath my feet the taverns lie.

In the world of love, o Khadim, lovers are exalted.
In Khwaja, comeliest of candles, they are moths in his conflagration.

Naghma-e-dard 103

The sounding of my destiny beckoned me with exhilarating ecstasy.
I listen to that vibrant sound resounding throughout my own existence.

My own existence appears not mine but the vibrant being of my Friend.
From the moment of my destruction I have no being save living in my Friend.

You caused my existence to exist, You are my renown.
Certainly I am not, only You exist – You are.

In idols I see the elegant Witness of the realms:
I found God, I witness to God, God I found in idol worship.

Eyes of my lovely Friend, plunderer of my faith are you:
In your infidel’s splendour I see the worshipper of truth.

Why not dance your exuberance, o Khadim, with every particle of your existence.
The face of your exquisite Friend reflects in the exhilaration of your ecstasy.

Saz-e-Ishq 14

In clandestine nothingness arises the self-manifesting Self.
At the splendid Sinai the veil was removed before everyone
by the self-manifesting Self.

Without all, the One manifesting is the elegance of annihilation.
With all, the One manifest is the beauty of the essence.

Separate from all and in everyone,
The self-manifesting Self manifests.

In boundless realms and from sacred appointments,
The heart’s eye has seen the self-manifesting Self manifest.

Existence and non-existence are both veils, alluring the intellect.
Far from to be and not to be is the existence of the self-manifesting Self.

In the exquisiteness of the hidden God and in the loveliness of both worlds,
In existence and in non-existence manifests the self-manifesting Self.

Destitute Khadim has seen in variegated colours,
The illustrious realm of witnessing testify to the self-manifesting Self.

Saz-e-Eshq 1

In the final poem the poet Khadim expresses his devotion
to Khwaja Mo’inuddin Chishti:

No words explain my feelings in Your presence
My laments shall wail through time until resurrection.

He engenders in my heart’s chamber such glimmering splendour,
From one heart are born a hundred hearts for consecration.

Grace of such sublimity have You afforded me,
I cannot reflect with equity such love’s generous portion.

All Your beggars are present with empty hand,
Today what bounty will You bestow on them?

Those who have been joined in slavery with the Khwaja, o Khadim,
Even sultans take pride in those illustrious beggars.