They say, "How strange! This peerless beauty's face
Within the mirror's heart now holds a place!"
The marvel's not the face, the marvel is
That it should be at once mirror and face.
All mirrors in the universe I ween
Display Thy image with its radiant sheen--
Nay, in them all, so vast Thy effluent grace,
'Tis Thyself, not Thine image, that is seen.
[Footnote 1: Magians and Zoroastrians.]
[Footnote 2: The first verse belongs to "Flash I.," the second to
"Flash II.," but I have thought it wise to couple them together on
account of the unity of their meaning.]
[Footnote 3: That is to say that a portion of the material world,
through the mercy of God, is capable of receiving Very Being, and
thus the phenomenon becomes Very Being externalised. But Omnipotence
requires the total destruction of all phenomena and all multiplicity of
the same substance. The process is repeated _ad infinitum_.
"The Names" are mentioned in the _Masnavi_. See also Professor R. A.
Nicholson's _Divaní Shamsi Tabríz_, p. 71.]