turned towards waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight, that to
disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. Its perversity will long
continue. And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly appear
that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake. Then, and only then,
will the Divine Standard be unfurled, and the Nightingale of Paradise
warble its melody.





LXII: RECALL THOU TO MIND MY SORROWS, MY CARES...


Recall thou to mind My sorrows, My cares and anxieties, My woes and
trials, the state of My captivity, the tears that I have shed, the
bitterness of Mine anguish, and now My imprisonment in this far-off land.
God, O Muṣṭafá, beareth Me witness. Couldst thou be told what hath
befallen the Ancient Beauty, thou wouldst flee into the wilderness, and
weep with a great weeping. In thy grief, thou wouldst smite thyself on the
head, and cry out as one stung by the sting of the adder. Be thou grateful
to God, that We have refused to divulge unto thee the secrets of those
unsearchable decrees that have been sent down unto Us from the heaven of
the Will of thy Lord, the Most Powerful, the Almighty.

By the righteousness of God! Every morning I arose from My bed, I
discovered the hosts of countless afflictions massed behind My door; and
every night when I lay down, lo! My heart was torn with agony at what it
had suffered from the fiendish cruelty of its foes. With every piece of
bread the Ancient Beauty breaketh is coupled the assault of a fresh