Love’s Apocalypse, Love’s Glory

One breath from the breath of the Lover
Would be enough to burn away the world,
To scatter this insignificant universe like grains of sand.
The whole of the cosmos would become a Sea,
And sacred terror rubble this Sea to nothing.
No human being would remain, and no creature;
A smoke would come from heaven; there would be
no more man or angel.
Out of this smoke, A Flame would suddenly flash out across heaven.
That second, the sky would split apart and neither
space
nor existence remain.
Vast groans would rise up out of the breast of the universe,
Groans mingled with desolate moaning;
And fire eat up water, and water eat up fire.
The waves of the Sea of the Void would drown in their flood
the horseman of day and night;
The sun itself fades, vanishes, before this flaming out
of the soul of man.
Do not ask anyone who is not intimate with the secrets
When the Intimate of the Secret Himself cannot answer you.
Mars will lose its swagger, Jupiter burn the book of the world;
The moon will not hold its empire, its joy will be smirched
with agony.
Mercury will shipwreck in mud, Saturn burn itself to death;
Venus, singer of heaven, play no longer her songs of joy.
The rainbow will flee, and the cup, and the wine;
There will be no more happiness or rapture,
no more wound or cure.
Water will no longer dance with light,
wind no longer sweep the ground;
Gardens no longer abandon themselves to laughter,
April’s clouds no longer scatter their dew.
There will be no more grief, no more consolation,
no more “enemy” or “witness.”
No more flute or song, or lute or mode,
no more high or low pitch.
Causes will faint away; the cupbearer will serve himself.
The soul will recite: “O my Lord most high!”
The heart will cry out: “My Lord knows best.”
Rise up! The Painter of Eternity has set to work one more time
To trace miraculous figures on the crazy curtain of the world.

-Rumi, translated by Andrew Harvey