Love on the Poems of Yunus Emre

A Loving Heart

Dear friends, listen to me now,

Love’s like the shining sun,

A heart without love

Is nothing more than a stone.

What rises up in a stony heart?

No matter how softly it begins,

The tongue’s soft words

Soon turn to war when poison spews.

A loving heart burns and burns,

Then it melts like wax in the flame,

But a heart that is hard as stone

Is like winter, dark and mean and cold.

In the service of this Sultan,

In the presence of this Lord of might,

The star of all lovers shines

Like a faithful, royal servant.

Now Yunus, let your fears vanish

While flowering illusions of this world fade,

A true man first needs love, and from

Then on he is no different from a dervish.

 

Are You True Lover? 

If you don’t sacrifice your soul

On the path of love,

Are you a true lover?

If you don’t press hard

For union with the Friend,

Are you a true lover?

If you don’t strengthen

Your love for the Friend,

Forgetting all desire and attachment,

Are you a true lover?

 

Love needs no witness,

Not every soul rises up to heaven,

If you don’t burn

In love’s fire like a moth,

Are you a true lover?

 

If you don’t give up those desires

Of the self and you don’t

Drink from the cup of love,

If you have no determination

On the path to the Friend,

Are you a true lover?

 

If you don’t worship by day

And by night, devoting yourself to God,

If you don’t remember God in a crowd,

Are you a true lover?

 

Now Yunus, be patient

In your suffering for this Friend,

If your heart is not pierced

By the arrow of love,

Are you a true lover?

 

Lovers, Dear Lovers

Lovers, dear lovers,

The sect of love is my religion,

When my eyes saw the face of the BelovedEvery sorrow became a joy for me.

Sultan, my Sultan,

Since I gave myself to You,

From beginning to end

You are my life and my wealth.

The source of this mind and this soul

Was with You at the beginning,

You are the beginning, the end

And all that lies between,

I can only go towards You.

I come from You and I go to You,

My tongue says Your name within You,

Yet I cannot touch You, and

This divine wisdom holds me in awe.

I don’t call myself I any more,

I don’t call anyone you any more,

I can’t say this one is a servant,

That one is a sultan,

This makes no sense at all.

Since I found this love of the Beloved

Both the world and the hereafter are the same to me,

If You ask me about the eternal beginning and the eternal end,

They are today and tomorrow.

No longer can I mourn

Or cloud my inner heart,

I have heard the resonance of Haqq,

And I will never forget this moment.

Don’t let me forget Your love,

Don’t let me wander from Your gate,

If I should lose my self,

Let me find that self in You.

My Beloved created me then sent me here,

Go, he said, just see the world,

And I come to observe the beauty of the world,

Let those who love You

Never be content with the world.

He tells this to His servants,

You will see Me tomorrow,

But listen, that tomorrow

Of His lovers is my today.

Who else learned such wisdom

With the pain of all this love? 

And if this is ever to be known,

No one can speak of it,

I turn my heart to You.

You are my soul and my world,

You are my treasure and my wealth,

Anything I win or lose is from You,

What I do no longer belongs to me.

Yunus turns his face to You,

Forgetting himself completely

As You speak to You,

It is You who speaks for me.

To Be Alone With You 

Beloved, the arrow of Your love

Can actually go through stone,

We who are captured by Your love

Lose both mind and soul.

We shed tears by day and by night

As we get to know Your love,

When we worry about You alone,

All our fears and troubles drop away.

May the hearts that fall

Into Your love just burn and burn,

We deliver ourself to You,

And abandon everything else but You.

Worldly love is merely

A deadly kind of food,

When we see the end with wisdom,

We turn down that poisonous food.

If our mind is truly sound,

We don’t do our duty for wages,

We are not enslaved by houris,

We ignore them when they turn their face to us.

The true lover dashes off to give

His mind and his soul to the Beloved,

He offers his life a thousand times

For union with the Friend.

For all those who are wise, this world

Is nothing but a dream or a picture,

And when we surrender ourself to You,

We forget about this dream.

The heart and eyes of Yunus

Are filled with love of Haqq,

With love of our God alone,

He forgets all his friends,

Because he wants to be alone with Haqq.

Don’t Tell Lies To Love

My friends, do you know

Where the true friends of God are?

Wherever I look I see them,

Wherever I want to see them I do.

My words are like echoes

Bouncing off the stone of those

Who feel no love in their heart,

Know this, whoever feels no inner love

Is truly remote from me.

Come, don’t become a liar,

Don’t tell lies to love, just come,

If you tell lies here, tomorrow

You will be locked up there.

Now if you don’t know where

You come from, and you don’t understand

The meaning of these words,

Still longing for union

With Haqq, with the Truth, know that

This wisdom can be found in the Qur’an.

My words are true, He is the source of love

And He gives His love,

Whoever keeps a ray of love

In his heart is actually manifesting God.

Many say Yunus is an old man,

They plead with him to forget this love,

But the arrow of love has just pierced

Us now and the wound is still fresh.

The Fires Of Love

This soul of mine is suffering from yearning,

The desire to come back to God, its beginning,Is there any pain worseThan my endless longing for You?

The fires of love rage in my heart,

The whole world witnesses the fires burning my heart,

Whenever someone is on fire somewhere,

The sign is that smoke pouring from him.

This love of mine has dispatched a guard

For the house of my heart,

My soul is captured already,

How can my enemies harm me?

Let me spread the news to other countries,

Let me write my will for other lovers,

Let me warn them that

The Beloved plays with the lover’s heart.

I wonder why there is no remedy

To be found for my sorrow,

I wonder who it can be

Withholding the healer of my sorrow.

According to the sultans’ laws,

Their slaves are bound to do wrong,

According to the sultans’ will, their slaves

Are either subdued or sent to the market for sale.

Now Yunus do not complain, do not

Mention the pain your Beloved has caused,

All the longing of the lovers will come to an end

When they are in the presence of their Beloved

 

Love is an ezalted station

Love is an exalted station,

Love is ancient and eternal,

If you speak of love your tongue is grace,

Your tongue is the voice of the All-powerful.

 

He is the One who speaks, He is the One who hears,

He is the One who sees, He is the one who lets us see,

He is the One who utters every word,

Our form is the house of the soul.

 

How does this form find words,

How can it be the master of language?

He has given form to speech,

He has given wisdom to the tongue.

 

To speak is our duty,

To speak is our intoxicated joy,

What we drank, what makes us drunk

Is sherbet, the sweet waters of love.

 

What you say belongs to Him,

He is the One who speaks, the words are His,

He is ours, we are His,

This worship of the tongue is different.

 

Even if you do not believe in God, you

Will find no lies in the things Yunus says,

If you throw your life away in the dark,

You lose the wisdom of the divine