Poetry

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Invocation
Persian Psalms
Translated by Sir Muhammad Iqbal

I pray thee, Lord, to me impart
Within by breast a conscious heart;
Give me the vision to divine
The rapture pulsing through the wine.
It never pleased me, to receive
Another's breath, that I might live:
Give me a breath as light as morn,
A sigh that in the home was born.
I am a torrent: do not set
Me dribbling in a rivulet,
But give my waters space to spill
O'er valley broad and spreading hill.
Is it Thy will to fashion me
A rival to the boundless sea,
Amid the tumult of the main
Grant me the pearl's repose to gain.
Thou had'st the falcon that I am
Follow the leopard for his game.
Give me high will, a sharper claw,
To win my victim to my maw.
The small fowl of the Sanctuary
I marked my precious prey to be:
Grant me an arrow that, unsped,
Unerring flies, and strikes them dead.
Illuminate my lifeless clay
With anthems David used to play;
Let all my atoms swiftly spring
Upborne upon an ember's wing.