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The Mystic Rose from the Garden of the King -  A Fragment of the Vision of Sheikh Haji Ibrahim of Kerbela 1898 - Sir Fairfax Leighton Cartwright

A Dervish said

‘This vision came to me in my dream.  I saw the Lover approaching and the Beloved sat by the Celestial Fountain; and when he had drawn near and had come within the Power of her attraction, he fell down and worshipped her, saying:

'Beauty such as Thine I have not known and my heart is stirred’.

And she replied:  ‘Wilt thou drink?  To thee it may be Poison or Celestial Wine’.

And he said: 'Give me to drink, for I have faith in Thy Beauty.'

Then she dipped a vessel of brass into the Fountain, exclaiming:  'Base metal have I sunk therein'; and when he drew it out the cup shone like burnished gold, and was filled with the intoxicating Wine of Love.

Then again the Lover prostrated himself and kissed the feet of the Beloved, and she said to him:   'Rise and drink of the Celestial Draught, and thou wilt know the Divine Intoxication from Love Wine’. 

Then the Lover took the golden cup and drank thereof, and as he did so she said, ‘The dregs of the wine throw at thy feet’.

And he did so and I saw the dregs – flame coloured like the Wine - fall on the weeds of low desire at his feet, and the dregs like a burning fire shrivelled them up.

Then behold! The Beloved took the Lover to her bosom and they were merged together – for the Beloved had absorbed the Lover, and the Lover had enfolded the Beloved - and they were no longer two but one, and the Unity was attained.