bitter contrast

The many sighs your loss has dragged from me

Can only gratify my enemy.

Soul of my world, the pain of your going

Breaks my heart without yours even knowing.

#1387: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

I woke this morning with feelings of dissatisfaction and tried parts of dissatisfied, fail, succeed, loss to find today's quatrain.

This one is so pure, so lacking in enigma. All his evident pain is clear for anyone to see, including and especially the enemies who arranged for the loss to occur. Shams as the soul or central meaning of his world is gone and can never know how deeply Rumi was affected by his going. Surely if Shams stands for the divine beloved, he would know directly of Rumi's sighs and pain. There is no fancy subjective meaning here. Shams is simply the person that Rumi knew and loved and Shams is not there to know of Rumi's current pain.

It's a bitter contrast this, that those who wished to hurt him can relish watching him mourn but the one he loved so much cannot see it.