Thank you for asking about these special verses by Mawlana Rumi.
Haven't answered your question about the themes of the verses you
asked about. Rather, am hoping that other members (among the 60+) in
this discussion group will offer their interpretations. Meanwhile, am
trying to facilitate this by providing helpful material.
You should know that Rumi did not compose a poem entitled "The Unseen
Power". Rather, someone (Arberry?) selected verses 599 and 603 from
Book I of Masnavi and added the title.
As for the second group of verses you asked about, this is a complete
poem (but Arberry added a title to it, "Descent"). To read the Persian
correctly, it helps to know the poetic meter, which is hazaj maHdhûf:
(mu-FAA-`IY-LUN mu-FAA-`IY-LUN fa-`UU-LUN)
[oXXX oXXX oXX]
Below is another translation of Ghazal 1509 by Nevit Ergin, from
Golpinarli's Turkish translation. It also has some loss of meaning
because of going from Persian to Turkish to English, rather than
directly from Persian to English, and also because of the translator's
deficits in English (for example, in the last line, a "pencil;" broken
in the last line, rather than a pen).
Ibrahim
----------
I traveled from town to town, but I haven't seen a city like the
city of love.
At the beginning, I didn't appreciate the value of that city, and
because of my ignorance I suffered very much in exile.
I left the land of sugar cane and kept eating grasses in the
pasture like animals.
Why did I prefer leeks and onions to manna or quail like the
people of Moses?
Anything I hear in this world besides the sound of love, is
nothing but the noise of drums.
Because of that noisy drum, I dropped from the universe of
wholeness to the world of the temporary.
I was a pure soul, just a soul among souls. I was flying like a
heart without wings and feet.
I was tasting from that wine which gives grace and smiles to
people without lips and throats, just like a rose.
A voice came from love, "O soul," he said, "Get going. I created
a world of troubles. Go there."
I begged and kept saying, "I don't want to go there." I cried and
tore my shirt.
I was scared to go there. Also, I was afraid of not wanting to
come back from there.
"Go, O soul," he said. "Wherever you are, I'm closer to you than
your own carotid artery."
I was persuaded with all kinds of his charms and trickery.
He could move worlds with that charm. I was nothing, not even
seen by eyes.
I was kicked out of there and led down this road. I may have been
saved if I had stayed there.
I would tell you how to go there again, but when I came here to
tell, he broke my pencil.
--translated by Nevit Ergin, "Mevlânâ Celâleddîn Rumi: Dîvân-i Kebîr,
Volume 18", 2002, pp. 76-78
----"Even as now I shrink to be gone from here, even so thence to part
I did fear" is correct, not, "I was scared to go there. Also, I was
afraid of not wanting to come back from there."
---"I would tell you how to go there again, but when I came here to
tell, he broke my pencil' is not very good. "But ah, my pen is broke
and I am dumb" is not very good either, because of the forced rhyme.
More accurate: I would say how you may arrive (back) there, but (my)
pen is broken--when I reached here.
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