Blissful Yearning
From the West-Eastern Divan
Blissful Yearning - meaning Summary
Longing for Transformative Death
This poem presents a private, ecstatic longing for a consuming transformation. The speaker urges secrecy: ordinary listeners will not understand the desire to be transfigured by a fiery, self-annihilating love. The moth-burning image captures craving that simultaneously destroys and elevates, turning death into creative becoming. The poem closes on a moral imperative: without the true word Die and Become!
the soul remains a mere guest in a dim world.
Tell it no one but the wise, The crowd will only jeer: The living thing I praise, That longs for death by fire. Cooling, in those nights of love, Conceiving as you were conceived, A strange emotion fills you While the quiet candle gleams. You’re no longer in the grasp Of shadows, darkening, A new desire lifts you up On to a higher mating. No distances can weigh you down, Enchanted you come flying, And greedy for the light, at last, A moth, you burn in dying. And as long as you lack this True word: Die and Become! You’ll be but a dismal guest In Earth’s darkened room.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.