“The bird-soul was ashamed;
  Their body was quite annihilated;
  They had cleaned themselves from the dust,
  And were by the light ensouled. 
  What was, and was not,—­the Past,—­
  Was wiped out from their breast. 
  The sun from near-by beamed
  Clearest light into their soul;
  The resplendence of the Simorg beamed
  As one back from all three. 
  They knew not, amazed, if they
  Were either this or that. 
  They saw themselves all as Simorg,
  Themselves in the eternal Simorg. 
  When to the Simorg up they looked,
  They beheld him among themselves;
  And when they looked on each other,
  They saw themselves in the Simorg. 
  A single look grouped the two parties. 
  The Simorg emerged, the Simorg vanished,
  This in that, and that in this,
  As the world has never heard. 
  So remained they, sunk in wonder,
  Thoughtless in deepest thinking,
  And quite unconscious of themselves. 
  Speechless prayed they to the Highest
  To open this secret,
  And to unlock Thou and We. 
  There came an answer without tongue.—­
  ’The Highest is a sun-mirror;
  Who comes to Him sees himself therein,
  Sees body and soul, and soul and body: 
  When you came to the Simorg,
  Three therein appeared to you,
  And, had fifty of you come,
  So had you seen yourselves as many. 
  Him has none of us yet seen. 
  Ants see not the Pleiades. 
  Can the gnat grasp with his teeth
  The body of the elephant? 
  What you see is He not;
  What you hear is He not. 
  The valleys which you traverse,
  The actions which you perform,
  They lie under our treatment
  And among our properties. 
  You as three birds are amazed,
  Impatient, heartless, confused: 
  Far over you am I raised,
  Since I am in act Simorg. 
  Ye blot out my highest being,
  That ye may find yourselves on my throne;
  Forever ye blot out yourselves,
  As shadows in the sun.  Farewell!’”

Among the religious customs of the dervises, it seems, is an astronomical dance, in which the dervis imitates the movements of the heavenly bodies by spinning on his own axis, whilst, at the same time, he revolves round the sheikh in the centre, representing the sun; and as he spins, he sings the song of Seid Nimetollah of Kuhistan:—­

  “Spin the ball!  I reel, I hum,
  Nor head from foot can I discern,
  Nor my heart from love of mine,
  Nor the wine-cup from the wine. 
  All my doing, all my leaving,
  Reaches not to my perceiving. 
  Lost in whirling spheres I rove,
  And know only that I love.

  “I am seeker of the stone,
  Living gem of Solomon;
  From the shore of souls arrived,
  In the sea of sense I dived;
  But what is land, or what is wave,
  To me who only jewel crave? 
  Love’s the air-fed fire intense,
  My heart is the frankincense;
  As the rich aloes flames, I glow,
  Yet the censer cannot know. 
  I’m all-knowing, yet unknowing;
  Stand not, pause not, in my going.