Rumi Love and Ecstasy Poems

The following is a collection of Rumi's ecstatic love poems, translated by   Coleman Barks and Shahram Shiva. He spoke of lover and beloved as well as Lover and Beloved. He was in touch with them being the same, and both as being one.

The minute I heard my first love story,

I started looking for you, not knowing

how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,

they're in each other all along.

Translator: Coleman Barks

Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.

The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.

Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,

The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

Translator: Shahram Shiva

When I am with you, we stay up all night,

When you're not here, I can't get to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!

And the difference between them.

Translator: Coleman Barks

Suddenly the drunken sweetheart appeared out of my door.

She drank a cup of ruby wine and sat by my side.

Seeing and holding the lockets of her hair

My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands.

Translator: Shahram Shiva

I have phrases and whole pages memorized,

but nothing can be told of love.

You must wait until you and I

are living together.

In the conversation we'll have

then...be patient...then.

Translator: Coleman Barks

A Smile and A Gentleness

There is a smile and a gentleness

inside. When I learned the name

and address of that, I went to where

you sell perfume. I begged you not

to trouble me so with longing. Come

out and play! Flirt more naturally.

Teach me how to kiss. On the ground

a spread blanket, flame that's caught

and burning well, cumin seeds browning,

I am inside all of this with my soul.

Translator: Coleman Barks

When the sweet glance of my true love caught my eyes,

Like alchemy, it transformed my copper-like soul.

I searched for Him with a thousand hands,

He stretched out His arms and clutched my feet.

Translator: Shahram Shiva

With the Beloved's water of life, no illness remains

In the Beloved's rose garden of union, no thorn remains.

They say there is a window from one heart to another

How can there be a window where no wall remains?

Translator: Shahram Shiva

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,

absentminded. Someone sober

will worry about things going badly.

Let the lover be.

Translator: Coleman Barks

When your chest is free of your limiting ego,

Then you will see the ageless Beloved.

You can not see yourself without a mirror;

Look at the Beloved, He is the brightest mirror.

Translator: Shahram Shiva

Rumi Pages:      1    2    3

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Above poems from the books, Essential Rumi and Soul of Rumi both translated by Coleman Barks, and Thief of Sleep translated by Shahram Shiva.

The Freshness

When it's cold and raining,

you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me

even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,

you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,

or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again.

Inside the majesty.

Translator: Coleman Barks

Some Kiss We Want

There is some kiss we want with

our whole lives, the touch of

spirit on the body. Seawater

begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately

it needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and ask

the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into

me. Close the language- door and

open the love window. The moon

won't use the door, only the window.

Translator: Coleman Barks

When you find yourself with the Beloved, embracing for

one breath,

In that moment you will find your true destiny.

Alas, don't spoil this precious moment

Moments like this are very, very rare.

Translator: Shahram Shiva

Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky

And you lift me up out of the two worlds.

I want your sun to reach my raindrops,

So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.

Translator: Shahram Shiva