"Allah, Allah!" cried the sick man, racked with pain the long night
through;
Till with prayer his heart was tender, till his lips like honey grew.
But at morning came the Tempter; said, "Call louder, child of pain!
See if Allah ever hear, or answer 'Here am I' again."
Like a stab the cruel cavil through his brain and pulses went;
To his heart an icy coldness, to his brain a darkness, sent.
Then before him stands Elias; says "My child! why thus dismayed?
Dost repent thy former fervor? Is thy soul of prayer afraid?"
"Ah!" he cried, "I've called so often; never heard the 'Here am I';
And I thought, God will not pity, will not turn on me his eye."
Then the grave Elias answered, "God said, 'Rise, Elias, go,
Speak to him, the sorely tempted; lift him from his gulf of woe.
"'Tell him that his very longing is itself an answering cry;
That his prayer, "Come, gracious Allah," is my answer, "Here am I"'.
"Every inmost aspiration is God's angel undefiled;
And in every 'O my Father!' slumbers deep a 'Here, my child!'"
--Jelal-ed-Deen, tr. by James Freeman Clarke.