A Journey Out Of Self Into Self

If a tree might move by foot and wing,
It would not suffer the pain of the saw or the blows of the axe.
And if the sun did not fare by wing and foot every night,
How would the world be illuminated at morning-tide?
And if the salt water did not go up from the sea to the sky,
Whence would the garden be quickened by river and rain ?
When the drop departed from its native home and returned,
It found a shell and became a pearl.
Did not Joseph go on a journey from his father, weeping?
Did he not, in the journey, come to fortune and kingdom and victory? 
Did not Mustafa go a-journeying toward Medina,
Gain sovereignty and become lord of an hundred lands?
Tho' you have no feet choose to journey in yourself,
Like the ruby-mine receive a print from the sunbeams.
Make a journey out of self into self, O master,
For by such a journey earth becomes a quarry of gold.
From sourness and bitterness advance to sweetness,
Even as from briny soil a thousand sorts of fruit spring up.
From the Sun, the pride of Tabriz, behold these miracles,
For every tree gains beauty by the light of the sun.

Selected Poems from the Divani Shamsi Tabriz Edited and Translated by R. A. Nicholson