Poem I

1If thou art Love’s lover and seekest Love,Take a keen poniard and cut the throat of bashfulness.

2Know that reputation is a great hindrance in the path;This saying is disinterested: receive it with pure mind.

3Wherefore did that madman work madness in a thousand forms,That chosen wild one display a thousand wiles?

4Now he rent robe, and now sped o’er mountain,Now sipped poison, and now chose death.

5Since the spider seized prey so large,Behold what the snare of My Lord the Supreme will do!

6Since the love of Laila’s face had such value,How will it be with “He took His servant by night”?

7Hast thou not seen the dīvāns of Waisa and Rāmīn?Hast thou not read the tales of Wāmiq and ‘Adhrā?

8Thou gatherest up thy garment lest the water should wet it:Needs must thou plunge a thousand times in the sea.

9Love’s way is all lowliness and drunkenness:For the torrent runs down: how should it run upward?

10Thou wilt be as the bezel in the ring of loversIf thou art the bezel’s thrall, O master.

11Even as this earth to the sky is thrall,Even as the body to the spirit is thrall.

12Come, say, what did the earth lose by this connexion?What kindnesses has not the reason done to the limbs?

13It behoves not, son, to beat a drum under a quilt;Plant, like brave men, thy banner in the midst of the desert.

14Hark with the soul’s ear to the sounds innumerableIn the hollow of the green dome, rising from lovers’ passionate cry.

15When the strings of thy robe are loosed by the intoxication of love,Behold heaven’s triumph and Orion’s bewilderment!

16How the world, high and low, is troubledBy love, which is purified from high and low!