f and draweth away from all on
earth.

Love's a stranger to earth and heaven too;
In him are lunacies seventy-and-two.(18)

He hath bound a myriad victims in his fetters, wounded a myriad wise men
with his arrow. Know that every redness in the world is from his anger,
and every paleness in men's cheeks is from his poison. He yieldeth no
remedy but death, he walketh not save in the valley of the shadow; yet
sweeter than honey is his venom on the lover's lips, and fairer his
destruction in the seeker's eyes than a hundred thousand lives.

Wherefore must the veils of the satanic self be burned away at the fire of
love, that the spirit may be purified and cleansed and thus may know the
station of the Lord of the Worlds.

Kindle the fire of love and burn away all things,
Then set thy foot into the land of the lovers.(19)

And if, confirmed by the Creator, the lover escapes from the claws of the
eagle of love, he will enter

The Valley of Knowledge

and come out of doubt into certitude, and turn from the darkness of
illusion to the guiding light of the fear of God. His inner eyes will open
and he will privily converse with his Beloved; he will set ajar the gate
of truth and piety, and shut the doors of vain imaginings. He in this
station is content with the decree of God, and seeth war as peace, and
findeth in death the secrets of everlasting life. With inward and outward
eyes he witnesseth the mysteries of resurrection in the realms of creation
and the souls of men, and with a pure heart apprehendeth the divine wisdom
in the endless Manifestations of God. In the ocean he findeth a drop, in a
drop he beholdeth the secrets of the sea.

Split the atom's heart, and lo!
Within it thou wilt find a sun.(20)

The wayfarer in this Valley seeth in the fashionings of the True One
nothing save clear providence, and at every moment saith: "No defect canst
thou see in the creation of the God of Mercy: Repeat the gaze: Seest thou
a single flaw?"(21) He beholdeth justice in injustice, and in justice,
grace. In ignorance he findeth many a knowledge hidden, and in knowledge a
myriad wisdoms manifest. He breaketh the cage of the body and the
passions, and consorteth with the people of the immortal realm. He
mounteth on the ladders of inner truth and hasteneth to the heaven of
inner significance. He rideth in the ark of "we shall show them our signs
in the regions and in themselves,"(22) and journeyeth over the se