women to tears.
I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs,
And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.
He who abides far away from his home
Is ever longing for the day he shall return;
My wailing is heard in every throng,
In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.'

The reed flute is one of the principal instruments in the melancholy
music which accompanies the dancing of the Mevlevi dervishes. It is a
picture of the Sufi or enlightened man, whose life is, or ought to be,
one long lament over his separation from the Godhead, for which he
yearns till his purified spirit is re-absorbed into the Supreme Unity.
We are here reminded of the words of Novalis, "Philosophy is, properly
speaking, home sickness; the wish to be everywhere at home."

Briefly speaking, the subject of the Masnavi may be said to be the love
of the soul for God as its Origin, to Whom it longs to return, not the
submission of the ordinary pious Moslem to the iron despotism of Allah.
This thesis is illustrated with an extraordinary wealth of imagery and
apologue throughout the six books composing the work. The following
fable illustrates the familiar Sufi doctrine that all religions are the
same to God, Who only regards the heart:--

Moses, to his horror, heard one summer day
A benighted shepherd blasphemously pray:
'Lord!' he said, 'I would I knew Thee, where Thou art,
That for Thee I might perform a servant's part;
Comb Thy hair and dust Thy shoes and sweep Thy room,
Bring Thee every morning milk and honeycomb.'
Moses cried: 'Blasphemer! curb thy blatant speech!
Whom art thou addressing? Lord of all and each,
Allah the Almighty? Thinkest thou He doth need
Thine officious folly? Wilt all bounds exceed?
Miscreant, have a care, lest thunderbolts should break
On our heads and others perish for thy sake.
Without eyes He seeth, without ears He hears,
Hath no son nor partner through the endless years,
Space cannot contain Him, time He is above,
All the limits that He knows are Light and Love.'

Put to shame, the shepherd, his poor garment rent,
Went away disheartened, all his ardour spent.

Then spake God to Moses: 'Why hast thou from Me
Driven away My servant, who goes heavily?
Not for severance it was, but union,
I commissioned thee to preach, O hasty one!
Hatefullest of all things is to Me divorce,
And the worst of all ways is t