| There was once a lover who had sighed for long years in
separation from his beloved, and wasted in the fire of remoteness. From the rule of love,
his heart was empty of patience, and his body weary of his spirit; he reckoned life
without her as a mockery, and time consumed him away. How many a day he found no rest in
longing for her; how many a night the pain of her kept him from sleep; his body was worn
to a sigh, his heart's wound had turned him to a cry of sorrow. He had given a thousand
lives for one taste of the cup of her presence, but it availed him not. The doctors knew
no cure for him, and companions avoided his company; yea, physicians have no medicine for
one sick of love, unless the favour of the beloved one deliver him. At
last, the tree of his longing yielded the fruit of despair, and the fire of his hope fell
to ashes. Then one night he could live no more, and he went out of his house and made for
the marketplace. On a sudden, a watchman followed after him. He broke into a run, with the
watchman following; then other watchmen came together, and barred every passage to the
weary one. And the wretched one cried from his heart, and ran here and there, and moaned
to himself: "Surely this watchman is Izra'il, my angel of death, following so fast
upon me; or he is a tyrant of men, seeking to harm me." His feet carried him on,the
one bleeding with the arrow of love, and his heart lamented. Then he came to a garden
wall, and with untold pain he scaled it, for it proved very high; and forgetting his life,
he threw himself down to the garden.
And there he beheld his beloved with a lamp in her hand,
searching for a ring she had lost. When the heart-surrendered lover looked on his
ravishing love, he drew a great breath and raised up his hands in prayer, crying: "O
God! Give Thou glory to the watchman, and riches and long life. For the watchman was
Gabriel, guiding this poor one; or he was Israfil, bringing life to this wretched
one!"
Indeed, his words were true, for he had found many a secret
justice in this seeming tyranny of the watchman, and seen how many a mercy lay hid behind
the veil. Out of wrath, the guard had led him who was athirst in love's desert to the sea
of his loved one, and lit up the dark night of absence with the light of reunion. He had
driven one who was afar, into the garden of nearness, had guided an ailing soul to the
heart's physician.
Now if the lover could have looked ahead, he would have blessed the watchman at the
start, and prayed on his behalf, and he would have seen that tyranny as justice; but since
the end was veiled to him, he moaned and made his plaint in the beginning. Yet those who
journey in the garden land of knowledge, because they see the end in the beginning, see
peace in war and friendliness in anger. (Bahá'u'lláh, Seven Valleys, pp. 13-5) |
Introduction 