1. If the love of my heart should meet with a buyer, I would do something openly.
2. I have spread the carpet of abstinence in such a manner that every thread of the texture ends in a thousand Brahmanical threads.
1. The drinking of my heart-blood has surfeited me; like my sweetheart, I have become an enemy to myself.
2. I have killed myself and, from excessive love to him, have cast the crime on my own shoulders.*
He possesses harmony of thought; but his mind is unsettled, and he lives a disorderly life.
I am the nightingale of thy flower-bed. I swear by the pleasure of thy society that the rose has passed away, and I do not know where the garden is.
1. May all hearts rest peacefully in the black night of thy curls, when I, the miserable, wander restless from thy street!
2. I have knocked at the door of the seventy-two sects of Islám, and have come to the door of despair, hopeless of getting help from heathen and Musulmán.
3. I had come from the land of faithfulness: what wonder, if I vanish from the dear memory of the [faithless] fair?
1. I have consumed my sober heart on the rubbish-heap of passion; I have burnt the Ka'bah's candle at the idol temple's gate.
2. The flower-bed of a certain beloved has not wafted to me the fragrance of fulfilled desires, and hopelessly do I consume myself in my dismal corner.
3. No one has ever said the word ‘friend’ to me, not even by mistake, though I consume myself before acquaintances and strangers.*
1. O heart, what portion of his wine-coloured lip dost thou keep in thy flagon, that thy inside is full of sighs and thy neck full of sobs.*
2. Love has thrown me into oceans of bloody tears; go, go away, that for once thou mayest reach the banks of the stream.
I have given thee permission to shed my blood without retaliation. I have said so, and give it thee black on white, and stamped with my seal.
Sometimes I am drowned in floods, sometimes burning in flames. Let no one build a house in my street!
In the name of God, let us go, if you belong to my travelling companions. This caravan* has no bell to sound the hour of starting.
In a realm where the word ‘faithfulness’ produces tears, the messenger and the letter he brings* produce each separately tears.
1. Is the killing of a man like me worth a single sign of anger and hatred? Is shedding my blood worth the bending of thy arm [pr. thy sleeve]?
2. If thou art resolved to break my heart, is it worth thy while to illtreat thy lovers?
He is in affluent circumstances, but from virtuous motives he mixes little with the world. He seeks retirement by travelling about.
Look upon me, when standing below the revolving roof of the heavens, as a lamp concealed under a cover.
1. O heart, thy road is not without thorns and caltrops, nor dost thou walk on the wheel of good fortune.
2. If it be possible, pull the skin from the body, and see whether thy burden will be a little lighter.
1. You asked me, “How are you, Muhammad, after falling in love with him?—long may you live!” “I stand,” said I, “below the heaven as a murderer under the gibbet.”
His name is Sayyid 'Alí, and he is the son of Mír Mançúr. He was born and educated in Tabríz, and attained, under the care of his Majesty, the greatest perfection in the art of painting.
The beauty of idols is the Ka'bah to which I travel; love is the desert, and the obstinacy of the worthless watchers* the acacia thorns.
I am a prey half-killed and stretched on the ground, far from the street of my beloved. I stagger along, tumbling down and rising up again, till I come near enough to catch a glimpse of him.
In the morning, the thorn boasts of having been together with the rose, and drives a nail through the broken heart of the nightingale.
His name is Sharíf.
Love and the lover have in reality the same object in view. Do not believe that I lose by giving thee my life.
1. I do not care for health.* O Lord, let sorrow be my lot, a sorrow which deprives my heart of every hope of recovery!
2. I am smitten by the eye which looks so coquettishly at me, that it raises, openly and secretly, a hundred wishes in my heart.
He is a relation of [the poet] Mírzá Qásim of Gúnábád, [or Junábád, or Junábíd, in Khurásán]. He writes Shikastah well, and is a good hand at shooting with the bow and the matchlock.
If the dust of my body were mixed with that of others, you would recognize my ashes by their odour of love.
Thy coming has shed a lustre on the ground, and its dust atoms serve as surmah for my eyes.
The lions of the Haram should not stain their paws with my blood. O friend, give the dogs of the Christian monastery this food as a treat.
What do I care for comfort! I think myself happy in my misery; for the word ‘rest’ is not used in the language of this realm [love].
He traces his descent from Zainuddín Kháfí. He pretended to be a Çúfí.
No one has, in thy love, been more brought up to sorrow than I; and that thou knowest not my sorrow is a new sorrow.
I took to travelling in order to allay my grief, not knowing that my road would pass over hundred mountains of grief.
He possesses sparks of taste. He had been for some time wandering in the desert of retirement, but has now put the mantle of worldliness on his shoulders.*
I do not call him a buyer who only wishes to buy a Yúsuf. Let a man buy what he does not require!*
Knock at night at the door of the heart; for when it dawns, the doors are opened, and the door of the heart is closed.
I am secure from the dangers of life: no one deprives the street-beggar of his bareness.
1. The dart of fate comes from the other side of the armour;* why should I uselessly put on an armour?
2. Flash of death, strike first at me! I am no grain that brings an ear to the harvest.
Joy and youth are like the fragrance of the rose that chooses the zephyr as a companion.
He belongs to the Arabians of the Jazáir. He has acquired some knowledge.
1. I became a cloak to ruin, Sáqí, and like the Ka'bah, a place of belief and heresy.
2. I have found no trace of love, much as I have travelled among the hearts of the infidels and the faithful.
My heart is still ardent with love, and thou art still indifferent. O sweetheart, speak, before I openly express myself.
His name is Haidar. He is well acquainted with the ars poetica, and is distinguished as a writer of riddles and táríkhs.
My heart is sensitive, you cruel one; what remedy is there for me? Although a lover, I have the temper of the beloved—what can I do?
1. A recluse does not sin [love] and calls thee a tyrant; I am plunged into crime [love], and think that thou art forgiving.
2. He calls thee a tyrant, I call thee forgiving; choose whatever name pleases thee most.
His diction is good, and he knows the history of the past.
I am smitten by the eyelash of my murderer, who has shed my blood without letting a drop fall to the ground.*
The present age asks God for a mischief-maker like thee, who makes the days of the wretched bitterer.*
I am free from worldliness; for my aspirations do no longer lean against the wall of confidence.
I am smitten by the fearless glance of a Christian youth, for whose sake God will pardon, on the day of resurrection, the slaughter of a hundred Musalmáns.
Even death mourns for those who are killed by the grief of separation from thee.
The street of the sweet boy is a beautiful land; for there even heaven's envy is changed to love.
I saw the heart of another full of grief, and I became jealous; for there is but one cruel tyrant in these regions.*
His name is Yádgar. He is a selfish man.
Leave me to my grief! I find rest in my grief for him. I die, if the thought of the possibility of a cure enters my heart.
When my eye caught a glimpse of him, my lips quivered and closed. Oh that life remained but a moment within me!
To whatever side I turn in the night of separation, my heart feels pierced by the thought of the arrow of his eyelash.
He is the son of Mír Haidar, the riddle-writer. He has a taste for poetry, and lives in good circumstances.