{
 "id": "ameen-rihani/badruddin",
 "title": "Badruddin",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ameen Rihani",
 "poet_slug": "ameen-rihani",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Chant of Mystics and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "a-chant-of-mystics-and-other-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 20,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1921,
  "venue": "A Chant of Mystics and Other Poems (1921)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/chantofmysticsot00riha"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ameen-rihani_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Myrtle_and_Myrrh",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Chant_of_Mystics_and_Other_Poems",
   "https://archive.org/details/myrtlemyrrhpoems00riha",
   "https://archive.org/details/chantofmysticsot00riha"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 62,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Seek what you shall e’er possess,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Badruddin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although it be a will-o’-the-wisp",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the Unseen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which you may never behold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until my suns and satellites are cold.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the seeking you shall find",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hidden jewels of the soul and mind;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every jewel shall reveal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Things divine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even in a Sufi’s logic wheel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea, even in the lowing kine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The eyewash, O lone Badruddin, I bring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is of the first dews of the first-born spring.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Apply it and behold!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your dog-bitten sandals are transformed into gold;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your staff, sand-eaten and far-wandering,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is bursting into foliage, blossoming,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bearing fruits of wondrous lush and glow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And underneath the heavy-laden tree",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A maid, whose face dispels all human woe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is cooking sesame for you and me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cast off the garments of the world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wear the sacred shades,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose color of contentment never fades,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sit beside me with the golden fawn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose name is Eternal Dawn.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O thou Belovéd, every word of thine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is like a draught of purple wine;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every syllable",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is like the singing of the bulbul.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More potent are they than the magic lore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which to the blind the sight restore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As now to one, who though a pilgrim old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is but an infant in the cradle of love.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea, O thou incomparably Sweet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy words are to mine eyes a healing kohl,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Musk to my nostrils, balm to my soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strengthening ointments to my feet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what, in the stores and treasures of the world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is equal unto this?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wealth and Beauty, Fame and Power,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are but mirages in the boundless waste",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That separates me from thee⁠—for an hour.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Once I tarried at a Well in an Oasis fair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But in the cup I lifted to my lips",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw the image of thy wrath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my despair:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I dashed against a rock the common clay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hastened away.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now, O thou Beloved, I come to thee:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With thy beauty drunk and dumb;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Burdened with thy wealth, and lame;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ushered by thy liveried Fame;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In thy glory garbed I come.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I tremble at thy threshold lest the thorns in my feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The story of my sacrifice repeat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I tremble at thy threshold lest the flowers of my heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Betray the painted lips of conscious art;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I tremble at thy threshold lest the eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That long have sought to behold but once thy face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deserve not even thy shadow to embrace.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}