In polite society they are silent; in secret conversation they are screened from the public view.

When you come to the thoroughfare of Love, do not raise dust, for there they are all surmahsellers.*

Those are full of the divine who speak joyfully and draw clear wine without goblet and jar.

Do not ask them for the ornaments of science and learning; for they are people who have thrown fire on the book.*

O Faizí, go a few steps beyond thyself, go from thyself to the door, and place thy furniture before the door.*

Shut upon thyself the folding door of the eye, and then put on it two hundred locks of eyelashes.

O Faizí, the time of old age has come, look where thou settest thy feet. If thou puttest thy foot away from thy eyelashes, put it carefully.

A pair of glass spectacles avails nothing, nothing. Cut off a piece from thy heart,* and put it on thine eye.

A sigh is a zephyr from the hyacinthbed of speech, and this zephyr has spread a throne for the lord of Speech.

I sit upon this throne as the Sulaimán of speech; hear me speaking the language of birds.*

O Lover, whose desolate heart grief will not leave, the fever heat will not leave thy body, as long as the heart remains!

A lover possesses the property of quicksilver, which does not lose its restlessness till it is kushtah.*

O Faizí, open the ear of the heart and the eye of sense; remove thy eye and ear from worldly affairs.

Behold the wonderful change of time, and close your lip; listen to the enchanter Time and shut thy eye.

What harm can befall me, even if the ranks of my enemies attack me? They only strike a blow to the ocean with a handful of dust.

I am like a naked sword in the hand of fate: he is killed who throws himself on me.

To-day I am at once both clear wine and dreg; I am hell, paradise, and purgatory.

Any thing more wonderful than myself does not exist; for I am at once the ocean, the jewel, and the merchant.

Before I and thou were thought of, our free will was taken from our hands.

Be without cares, for the maker of both worlds settled our affairs long before I and thou were made.

He held the office of a magistrate* and turned to poetry. He made himself widely known. His manners were simple and pure.

1. My speech is the morning of sincere men; my tongue is the sword of the morning of words.

2. It is clear from my words that the Rúhulquds is the nurse of the Maryam of my hand [composition].*

3. It is sufficient that my pen has made my meanings fine, a single dot of my pen is my world.

4. In short, words exist in this world of brief duration, and my words are taken from them.

5. No one on the day of resurrection will get hold of my garment except passion, which numbers among those whom I have slain.

When thou goest out to mingle in society at evening, the last ray of the sun lingers on thy door and thy walls, in order to see thee.

1. In the manner of beauty and coquetry, many fine things are to be seen, (as for example) cruel ogling and tyrannical flirting.

2. If I hold up a mirror to this strange idol, his own figure does not appear to his eye as something known to him.*

3. If, for example, thou sittest behind a looking glass, a person standing before it would see his own face with the head turned backwards.*

4. If, for example, an ear of corn was to receive its water according to an agreement made with thee [O miser], no more grain would ever be crushed in the hole of a mill.

1. A sorrow which reminds lovers of the conversation of the beloved, is for them the same as sweet medicine.

2. I exposed the prey of my heart to death, but the huntsman has given me quarter on account of my leanness and let me run away.*

3. If lovers slept with the beloved till the morning of resurrection, the morning breeze would cause them to feel the pain of an arrow.*

O sober friends, now is the time to tear the collar; but who will raise my hand to my collar?*

The messenger Desire comes again running, saying* ….

It is incumbent upon lovers to hand over to their hearts those (cruel) words which the beloved (boy) took from his heart and put upon his tongue.

When my foot takes me to the Ka'bah, expect to find me in an idol temple; for my foot goes backwards, and my goal is an illusion.

1. The spheres of the nine heavens cannot contain an atom of the love grief which Sanáí's dust scatters to the winds.

2. Like the sun of the heaven thou livest for all ages; every eye knows thee as well as it knows what sleep is.

He was an enquiring man of a philosophical turn of mind, and well acquainted with ancient poetry and chronology. He was free and easy and goodhearted; friendliness was stamped upon his forehead.*

1. I search my heart all round to look for a quiet place—and, gracious God! if I do not find sorrow, I find desires.

2. Zalíkhá stood on the flowerbed, and yet she said in her grief that it reminded her of the prison in which a certain ornament of society [Yúsuf] dwelled.

3. I am in despair on thy account, and yet what shall I do with love? for between me and it (love) stands (unfulfilled) desire.

Gabriel's wing would droop, if he had to fly along the road of love; this message (love) does not travel as if on a zephyr.

Whether a man be an Ayáz or a Mahmúd, here (in love) he is a slave; for love ties with the same string the foot of the slave and the freeman.*

1. Last night my moist eye caught fire from the warmth of my heart; the lamp of my heart was burning until morning, to shew you the way to me.

2. The power of thy beauty became perfectly known to me, when its fire fell on my heart and consumed me unknown to myself.

O Huzní, I sometimes smile at thy simplicity: thou hast become a lover, and yet expectest faithfulness from the beloved.

Don't cast loving eyes at me; for I am a withered feeble plant, which cannot bear the full radiance of the life-consuming sun [of thy beauty].

Alas! when I throw myself on the fire, the obstinate beloved has nothing else to say but “Huzní, what is smoke like?”

I hear, Huzní, that thou art anxious to be freed from love's fetters. Heartless wretch, be off; what dost thou know of the value of such a captivity!

To-day, like every other day, the simple minded Huzní was content with thy false promises, and had to go.

He is known as Miyán Kálí. He knew something of the ordinary sciences, and lived quiet and content. He rarely mixed with people in high position. On account of his generous disposition, a few low men had gathered round him, for which reason well meaning people who did not know the circumstances, often upbraided him. Partly from his own love of independence, partly from the indulgence of his Majesty, he counted himself among the disciples, and often foretold future events.

A low minded man must be he who can lift up his hand in prayer to God's throne for terrestrial goods.

If lovers counted the hours spent in silent grief, their lives would appear to them longer than that of Khizr.*

Wherever thou goest, I follow thee like a shadow; perhaps, in course of time, thou wilt by degrees cast a kind glance at me.*

1. When I saw even elephants attached to my beloved, I spent the coin of my life on the road of the elephant.

2. Wherever I go, I throw like the elephant dust on my head, unless I see my guide above my head.

3. The elephant taming king is Jaláluddín Muhammad Akbar, he who bestows golden elephants upon his poets.