Petra

It seems no work of Man's creative hand

by labor wrought as wavering fancy planned

But from the rock as if by magic grown

eternal, silent, beautiful, alone

Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine

where erst Athena held her rites divine

Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane

that crowns the hill and consecrates the plain

But rose-red as if the blush of dawn

that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn

The hues of youth upon a brow of woe

which Man deemed old two thousand years ago

match me such marvel save in Eastern clime

a rose-red city half as old as time

It Felt Love

How

Did the rose

Ever open its heart

And give to this world

All its

Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light

Against its

Being,

Otherwise,

We all remain

Too

Frightened.

-Hafiz, c. 1320 to 1389, a beautiful, mystic, Sufi poet from Persia

Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.