III + 

Then from the world I turn’d my steps afar; + 

I came there where the holy Trinity + 

And all the blessed saints in glory are, + 

And did the beatific vision see, + 

And how those happy are that once did mourn; + 

But my heart said⁠—All this is naught to me; + 

Nor knew I why all these should be reborn. + 

Where moon-fac’d houris wanton arms do fling + 

Round Mahmud’s blessed, I past by in scorn, + 

For my heart dream’d a deeper revelling. + 

Then came I to that banquet more divine + 

That Jayadeva and that Jami sing; + 

And the fair goblet fill’d full of the wine + 

Brought the cup-bearer clad with wantonness; + 

And there with the beloved and the vine + 

My heart grew weary of that blessedness. + 

From life I past, finding no joy therein. + 

The vision and the vine and drunkenness + 

Still like a circle ever closing in. + 

Then I departed to the final peace, + 

Sick of what is and shall be and hath been, + 

Of Brahma, as the drop sinks in the seas: + 

I past out from the bonds of thee-and-me, + 

Lost in that Infinite whose being is + 

Glory in all things and reality; + 

But therein I that was not I, alas + 

In that deliverance from me-and-thee + 

Where all illusion fadeth like to grass, + 

Found naught that equall’d my undimm’d desire; + 

—If that reality then real was, + 

What is that real more than trodden mire? + 

Then from all being did my spirit pass, + 

Sick of all being whether low or higher. + 

Out of that circle unto nothingness + 

I came, unto Nirvana, the far goal + 

Of many a holy saint, where visions cease; + 

But nothingness did not my heart console. + 

Ah not in nothingness is any peace, + 

Nor in peace any peace, nor in the whole, + 

Nor in the vine nor in the vision, nor + 

In being nor non-being, nor in all + 

That man hath dream’d of and hath anguisht for. + 

Nay not in joy nor the vine jovial, + 

Nor in the perfume of the lov’d one’s breath, + 

Nay nor in anything anywhere at all; + 

Nor in illusion; nor what sundereth + 

Illusion; in the sundering of that chain + 

There is no joy; and not alas in death + 

Find I that thing whereof my soul is fain. + 

All these things also are all vanity + 

No less than sun and stars that wax and wane + 

Forever in the everlasting sky. + 