Discourses of Rumi

276 V DISCOURSES OF RUMISince you only recognize the general attributes,not seeing our particular beauty, it is not properarguing with you, for our words are commingledwith beauty and it is wrong to reveal beauty tothose who do not love beauty.This is the science of potential, it is not the scienceof argumentation. Roses and fruit-blossomsdo not bloom in the autumn, for that would confrontand compete with autumn. It is not in thenature of the rose to confront autumn. If the sunhas done its work, the rose comes out in its properseason, otherwise it draws in its head andretires within its stem. Autumn says to it, “If youare not barren, confront me!” The rose says, “Inyour presence I am barren and a coward. Saywhatever you will!”O monarch of all truthful folk,How can I be called a hypocrite?With living people I am alive,And with the dead as dead I sit.If some old crone without any teeth, her faceall wrinkled like the back of a lizard, came to youand said, “If you are a man and a true youth,behold, I have come before you! Behold the horse