Know that the wheeling heavens are turned by waves of Love:

were it not for Love, the world would be frozen, stiff.

How would an inorganic thing transform into a plant?

How would living creatures sacrifice themselves

to become endowed with Spirit?

How would the Spirit sacrifice itself for the sake of that Breath

by which Mary was made pregnant?

Each one of them would be unyielding and immovable as ice:

how could they be flying and searching like locusts?

Everyone is in love with that Perfection

and hastening upward like a sapling.

Their haste implicitly is saying, "Glory to God!"

They are purifying the body for the sake of the Spirit.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

-- Mathnawi V: 3854-3859

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"

Threshold Books, 1996

(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)