When I Die

I'm sorry, the translation very appealing in the English, but to me, as a native Persian, it contains important deviations from the original both in the form and content. It seems to be very popular on the web, but I don't know who is the original translator.

Here is the translation of the same poem by R.A. Nicholson,  one of the foremost scholars and translators of Rumi (soruce). This seems fairly accurate in meaning to me.The author even has used the archaic form of English verbs (moveth, etc), as the original is in old poetic Persian. The original has no title.

====================================

When my bier moveth on the day of death

Think not my heart is in this world.

Do not weep for me and cry “woe, woe!”

Thou wilt fall in the devil’s snare: that is woe

When thou seest my hearse, cry not, “gone, gone!”

Union and meeting are mine in that hour

If thou commit me to the grave, say not “Farewell, farewell”

For the grave is a curtain hiding the communion of paradise

After beholding descent, consider resurrection

Why should setting be injurious to the sun and moon?

To thee it seems a setting, but ’tis a rising’

Tho’ the vault seems a prison, ’tis the release of a soul

What seed went down into the earth but it grew?

Why this doubt of thine as regards the seed of man?

What bucket was lowered but it came out brimful?

Why should the Joseph of the Spirit complain of the well?

Shut thy mouth on this side, and open it beyond

For in placeless air will be thy triumphal song.

==========================================

(From R.A. Nicholson, Selected Poems form the Divani Shamsi Tabriz, p. 94-96)