Analysis of Description of Love

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi 1207 (Balkh) – 1273 (Konya )



A true lover is proved such by his pain of heart;
No sickness is there like sickness of heart.
The lover's ailment is different from all ailments;
Love is the astrolabe of God's mysteries.
A lover may hanker after this love or that love,
But at the last he is drawn to the KING of love.
However much we describe and explain love,
When we fall in love we are ashamed of our words.
Explanation by the tongue makes most things clear,
But love unexplained is clearer.
When pen hasted to write,
On reaching the subject of love it split in twain.
When the discourse touched on the matter of love,
Pen was broken and paper torn.
In explaining it Reason sticks fast, as an ass in mire;
Naught but Love itself can explain love and lovers!
None but the sun can display the sun,
If you would see it displayed, turn not away from it.
Shadows, indeed, may indicate the sun's presence,
But only the sun displays the light of life.
Shadows induce slumber, like evening talks,
But when the sun arises the 'moon is split asunder.'
In the world there is naught so wondrous as the sun,
But the Sun of the soul sets not and has no yesterday.
Though the material sun is unique and single,
We can conceive similar suns like to it.
But the Sun of the soul, beyond this firmament,
No like thereof is seen in concrete or abstract.
Where is there room in conception for His essence,
So that similitudes of HIM should be conceivable?


Scheme AABCDDDEFGHIDJKLMNOPQGMRSNATOS
Poetic Form
Metre 011011111111 1101111011 0101011001110 110111100 0101101011111 110111110111 1011010011 1110111011101 0101011111 1101110 11111 110001111101 10101101011 11100101 00101101111101 111011011010 110110101 1111101110111 1011100110 11001010111 101101101 11010100111010 001111110101 1011011101110 1001001101010 11011001111 1011010111 11111001101 111100101110 11111110100
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,386
Words 265
Sentences 16
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 30
Lines Amount 30
Letters per line (avg) 37
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 1,104
Words per stanza (avg) 262
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 14, 2023

1:20 min read
69

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, and more popularly simply as Rumi, was a 13th-century Persian poet, faqih, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. more…

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