O Nightingales (Ay Bulbulan) is a short poem in which Baha’u’llah announces to those who are searching for their divine Beloved that they can now see him before them.
Read the Introduction. Watch on YouTube.
Translation by Juan Cole
Nightingales, O nightingales!
The season of roses, the blooming time… is here.
Mystics, O mystics!
What you could not see, now you can.
Lovers, O lovers!
The adored one’s cheek is in full view.
Seekers, O seekers!
The object of desire is before your eyes.
The beauty of the Eternal Truth has dawned;
the lights of the Absolute have shone.
You must be freed from the body’s jail,
so that you can soar into the air.
The beloved, seated, veiled —
the great king of the exalted spheres —
now, like Joseph in Egypt,
frequents alleyways and bazaars!
The Unseen One was concealed behind a hundred eons
on the Mount Qaf of immortality —
Now look, what a sun in the sky there is;
night has retreated from the hills.
The wholesale bazaar of lovers
has been scattered by your perfumed locks
And because of your lips — sugar rubies —
everything smells like a confectioner’s shop.
The wine has matured in its jugs;
Reason and intellect are left bewildered
When the chalice of God was filled to the brim
everyone rushed to imbibe this deadly poison!