“One should sit alone with one's self in the assembly,
One should commune ever with one's self,
One should be both the nightingale and the rose of the
meadow.*
One should be distraught with one's own affairs”

“Thou hearest the shout of departure from all
Thou hearest the cry ‘Come on’ both before and behind
All have made a night march to a distant halting place
Whilst thou hast slept by the road and hearest but the sound
of the bell.”

“O thou who desirest a glimpse of that Face,
Thou needest eyes other than those in thy head.
Dost thou wish to miss none of those Glances?
Thou must have eyes in the heart, and within them yet other
eyes.”

“The love of thee is not to be bought by every buyer
The price of one hair of thine is this world and the next.
Thy love is not a rose which blooms in streets and markets,
Nor is it such musk as is found in the perfumer's shop.” ³⁷¹

“Those complainest of the defilements of the world.
Find not fault with others, for thou, too, art one of the throng.
Preserve thine own skirt from defilement
Nāmī, for the two or three days which thou hast to spend on
this midden.”

“In loving lovely ones one must accustom one's self to madness,
One must lead one's soul to the endurance of separation.
One must become as a bottle filled with blood,
And then pour one's heart out at one's eyes.”

“In our religion thou must ever be constant
And keep the faith while in the circle of infidelity.
This is the path of love of our beloved,
To stand ever with the sacred thread of idolatry round the
neck, and yet remain a Musalmān.”

“A rose-garden of beauty is the cheek of my enslaver.
When it displays itself before my wounded heart

I weep seas upon seas and worlds upon worlds of blood,
I blossom with gardens upon gardens and meadows upon
meadows of roses.”

372 “On the day on which I arise, crying out for grief at her
absence
The hand of my heart is twisted in the skirt of separation.
With those tears which are mingled with my heart's blood.
I shed on my skirt the blood of two thousand hearts.”

“In the ocean of my heart a sea of blood is in turmoil,
A hundred hells of pain are burning within me.
I shall strike fire into the structure of the world
From this madness which burns within me.”

“Seek not a sweetheart lest thy whole heart turn to blood,
Lest thou be not hers until thou art completely changed.
Lest thou become distracted, arranged, and mad,
Lest thou depart completely from the fashion of the age.”

“Although the seekers after His beauty are many
Not every eye is worthy to catch a glimpse of the Face of the
Friend;
Not all idolatry is worthy of the sacred thread,
Nor is every head worthy of adorning the gibbet.”

“Every moment my heart arranges its thoughts of thee,
And makes a thousand guesses as to where thou art.
³⁷³ I fear, my love, that the bird of my soul
Will one day fly from its cage in the desire to be with thee.’

“O thou who hast laden thy camel,
And hast fallen asleep, forgetful of the march,
Wake, and set in the road the foot of search,
For all have gone and thou too art of this caravan.”

“To-day the breeze has a scent of fidelity,
As though it knew something of love.
It has thrown my poor mad heart into a turmoil
Perchance it has somewhere found cause to be disturbed.”

“At times I weep; at times I cease from weeping,
Lest haply from somewhere I should hear thy voice,
Not for a moment am I free from thoughts of thee,
I sometimes fear that I may forget to draw my next breath.”

“The eyes should know the meaning of grief,
The heart's pain should be set forth in weeping,
In the breast should be sparks of fire instead of a heart,
The heart,* instead of tears, should be in the eyes.”

“Every year, when the rose comes again into the garden, ³⁷⁴
Joy and gladness come into the world;
On the rose's page it is easy to read her faithlessness.
For the nightingale breaks into lamentations.”

“One quarter of my life was spent in ignorance,
One quarter of it was spent thou knowest how,
One quarter of it was spent in folly and idleness,
And one quarter was spent in grief and repentance.”

“My heart is wounded in a hundred ways by grief for thy
absence.
In thy absence I feel that the tumult of the day of resur-
rection is before me.
I draw in my breath, but exhale it not again,
For between my lip and my heart are more than a thousand
hells.”

“Every tear which I have shed from my eyes
I have first mixed with the poison of my grief for her
absence.
I fear that at the resurrection a hell will arise
From these tears which I have shed in her absence.”

“How long wilt thou fill thy heart with wrath on account of
one thing or another?
³⁷⁵ How long wilt thou make thy breast no more than a coffer of
gold?
Thy business is not to make thy heart turbid;
Thy business is to make it as clear as a mirror.”