This Cage

You who fly up from this narrow cage
veering off beyond the heavens
you'll see a new life after this;
how long will you bear this life's drear? . . .
This body wore a butler's garb
now sports a more fashionable form.
Death means life and this life is death
though heathen eyes see negative
All souls departed from this body
live on, but hidden now, like angels . . .
When body's bricks crumble, don't wail
Sir, you've only been in a jail
when you emerge from jail or pit,
you stand regal, tall, like Joseph

  Ghazal 3172 - "Diwan-e Shamsi Tabrizi"
Translation by Franklin D. Lewis
"Rumi, Past and Present, East and West"
Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2000