59
The men of God are kingly men indeed—
Scions of light, not begotten from seed.
Their palaces are huts, their thrones in gutters;
Their gardens need no walls, nor windows shutters.
Easy and yet majestic is their walk,
And parables in pure verse is their talk.
Their drooping eyelids are the gates of dawn,
And from their silence all true songs are born.
Heedless of our homage, for heaven obeys
Their slightest whim, and at their word suns blaze.
Drunken without wine and filled without meat,
The earth herself adores their holy feet.
Behold them! In their ruin is their treasure:
They are the sons of God-Man—his dear pleasure.
Our modern world has lost any common knowledge of the spiritual achievers, the twice born, the noble ones, the non-returners. The very possibility is ignored. Here their existence is given a vital affirmation. In language not so much about saliks but rather suggesting the ‘wayfarers’, the god-intoxicated, their existence is hymned in praise. They are the few who have won through to rebirth and freedom in this life.
They are the offshoots (scions) not of earthly ‘aristocracy’ but of real spirituality. They are sons of the God-Man. Baba called them his children. Treasure in a ruin is a phrase from Rumi. For a translation of Rumi see The Wayfarers, by William Donkin, p.36.
The second and second last couplets have four stresses per line, the other couplets three.