I Have Come

I have come so that, tugging your ear, I may draw you to me, unheart and unself you, plant you in my heart and soul. Rosebush, I have come a sweet spring-tide unto you, to seize you very gently in my embrace and squeeze you. I have come to adorn you in this worldly abode, to convey you above the skies like lovers’ prayers. I have come because you stole a kiss from an idol fair; give it back with a glad heart, master, for I will seize you back. What is a mere rose? You are the All1, you are the speaker of the command “Say”2 . If no one else knows you, since you are I, I know you. You are my soul and spirit, you are my Fatiha-chanter3 , be- come altogether the Fatiha, so that I may chant you in my heart. You are my quarry and game, though you have sprung from the snare; return to the snare, and if you will not, I will drive you. The lion said to me, “You are a wonderous deer; be gone! Why do you run in my wake so swiftly? I will tear you to pieces.” Accept my blow, and advance like a hero’s shield; give your ear to naught but the bowstring, that I may bend you like a bow. So many thousand stages there are from earth’s bounds to man; I have brought you from city to city, I will not leave you by the roadside. Say nothing, froth not, do not raise the lid of the cauldron; simmer well, and be patient, for I am cooking you. No, for you are a lion’s whelp hidden in a deer’s body: I will cause you suddenly to transcend the deer’s veil. You are my ball, and you run in the curved mallet of my decree; though I am making you to run, I am still running in your track.