The Promise of Peace
A message of peace is bestowed upon its eternal messenger
How pleasant its lively trill becomes.
Its moving voice is a proclamation of peace and reconciliation
It proclaims that the world will find an answer to its needs.
From its garden come sweet aromas of love
From its garden comes the breeze of paradise, a sign.
The world will be a world of peace and friendship
Read in its beautiful face the news of peace.
It is its mission to bring life to the dead
Like Mary's tree, 1 adorned with its fruits.
Behold his illustrious house erect on Sinai
He resembles Moses with his rod.
Christ descended from the heavens of Nazareth
The staff of peace and reconciliation is his banner.
O monarch of peace and security
He has arrived in Medina with his light.
This is the opportune hour for unity,
This world needs peace and its perpetuation.
The world will not settle its affairs with the spear,
its remedy and protection is friendship.
The story of friendship and the spearhead
is none other than that of Kadobin 2 and its punishment.
The heart of the world beats agitated with strife,
love is its remedy.
The agonizing flame of death and nonexistence
has exhausted patience and fortitude.
Tribunals have rained down upon the world for six addresses
Perhaps God will come to their aid.
The world suffers from the shedding of blood
Friendship is its remedy
Let us cast aside our weapons and without delay
let us turn to the plow and its alchemy.
Such is the conduct of true companions
emulating the conduct of their closest friends
They will leave the affairs of the people in the hands of the people
They will entrust them to the most astute among them.
They will bequeath the world to its inhabitants,
No more devourers of the world, who retain their debt of blood.
What result comes from war and combat
from the flash and its piercing roar?
What comes from the loathsome demon of enmity,
from his baleful dread and his cry of woe?
What comes from the roar of arms,
and the torturous blast of his trumpet?
Plant the tree of affection, for peace is its fruit,
cut down the sapling of enmity and pull up its root.
Here is the master key of peace in the hand of the Magnanimous
This is the urgent remedy; heed it, for it has come from your Bahá.
Let us embrace the promise of peace,
Let us be faithful to his covenant and his decree.
In the effort to emulate the king of poets, 3,
I have composed this ode in his footsteps.
Bahar, the charmer, who commands us to break ranks
who has praised peace and has striven to praise it.
He prays to God for the cessation of strife,
for the survival of the people depends on its elimination.
1 A palm tree that had withered and was restored to life and fruit through Mary, mother of Christ
2 A piece attributed to Nasser Khosrow
3 The King of Poets is the pseudonym of university professor Mohammad Taqi Bahar.
