English
A New Beginning
I cannot tell how that face could ever be hidden from my sight, when it never leaves my mind for even a breath.
No evil eye should fall on her beauty; we pray that even the mirror's gaze stays far from that face.
Out of jealousy I cannot bear to see even the messenger of my own glance, should it stray by accident near her street.
May the wide world never catch her scent; may the breeze never pass through her quarter.
Her beauty cannot be seen for the dazzle of its light; happy the face that hides within its own radiance.
Look closely at a single mote of dust until it dawns on you: the sun reveals itself in every speck.
The earth would feel no shame to receive her lovers, even if they took nothing to the grave but the longing to see her.
Her eyebrow won the whole world's heart in just two lines, the way a poet becomes famous for a single opening couplet.
The image of the beloved springs from every strand of my hair, like Shirin's lovely face from Shapur's brush.
Why is my heart so ruined by the reflection of her face, a face that has filled the house of the mirror with light?
Only after separation can one know the worth of union; distance from your street was a necessity for me, truly necessary.
After watching the mountain-carver Farhad, I became certain: union with the beloved can never be won by force.
I am not one who seeks release from pain and grief; I tried a thousand cures, and each wound only festered.
Loving your face, my patience has fled my heart; remembering your eyes, sleep has fled my eyes.
The fire you light in my chest never dies down, however much they pack camphor salve on the burn of my heart.
Apart from your street I find no road to anywhere; the day of your absence is night to me, and I am night-blind.
At the mention of your sweet name the thirsty leave quenched; at the memory of your ruby lips the drinker grows drunk again.
Out of envy of your face the curl is scarred; do not loosen it, for the fresh wound of the sun would only fester.
My heart never tastes honey from your lips without the sting of a rival; he sits over your nectar like a wasp.
Whenever your drunken glance fell on the garden, every drop of wine turned into a grape on the vine.
Now, far from your street, I am a prisoner of separation, like a feeble sparrow caught in a falcon's grip.
The longing for Solomon's glory is in my head, the desire that has made the world as narrow to me as an ant's eye.
From the joy of dwelling on the dust of a threshold whose architect was wondrous Fate, with heaven as its hired laborer,
what a threshold! Before its firmness the seven heavens themselves confess their weakness and shortfall.
What a threshold! No higher building was ever within the power of the hand of might to raise.
What a threshold! With all its thousands of carvings and designs, the sky cannot be called as adorned as it.
What a threshold! If the sun fell on its surface, you would think a speck of decay had settled on it.
A thousand years have passed, and many more will pass, yet it fears no decay from the wear of ages.
The lofty court of the king of religion, faith, and law, whose fame of sovereignty reaches to the trumpet blast of Judgment Day.
Imam Jafar al-Sadiq, whose judgment is like the true dawn; the very breath of the true morning glows with light from the dust of his door.
A king whose circle of justice has drawn both worlds into its embrace as a measuring tool encircles its field.
Before the expanse of his everlasting domain, Solomon's whole kingdom looks like the track of an ant.
As long as his banners of victory stand still or sway, time has no need for the turning of the spheres.
Out of fear, the world would join nonexistence forever, if his strength let a single eternity slip its guard.
Since the cure for every pain comes from him, I marvel why the sun still lies here so sick and worn.
Wherever he turns, he is always one step ahead: before him eternity runs like the morning breeze, behind him eternity past like the west wind.
If they lifted the veil from the face of his judgment, the universe would drown in light like the sun.
In any garden where it casts its rays like the sun, the flower of revealed light blooms from a dry branch.
In thanks for his bounty the sky stands wholly on its feet; if it sat down for a moment, it would be ungrateful.
If the ocean of his knowledge stirred its waves, half a single drop of it would solve all the world's hard problems.
Hidden truths circle his mind, troop upon troop, like houris parading in the meadow of paradise.
The heavens are but one page from his book; on half its leaf the Gospel is recorded, on the other half the Psalms.
Hell and heaven are two shadows of his wrath and pardon; mourning and joy are two rays of his anger and grace.
If you wish to see the flame of God's wrath made plain, look from afar at the corner of his frowning brow.
And if you have never seen the gate of grace flung open, see the smile of light in the brow of his morning sign.
The wounds of a hundred broken hearts are healed when his smile glows full on his ruby lips.
From the bounty of his universal justice it is no wonder if the ruined heart of a lover is made whole again.
When his glance lays color on a face, the grape's blood turns to water in its core out of fear.
When his stern rule kindles his face with anger, the very breath of song knots in the strings of the lute.
If his awe reaches the seven heavens, it throws into them a thousand kinds of trembling collapse.
If the envier does not know his worth, no matter: the nerve of his understanding has gone to sleep, for he is the enemy of understanding.
The tongue of his enemy strikes only his own heart; if it stings like a lancet, it dives into its own honey, a wasp.
Greed has so gripped the vein of his enemy's throat that nothing has met that throat but the butcher's blade.
The malice of the ill-wisher is no choice of his own; the bat is born to be the enemy of light.
The enemy exists only so causes may show their effect, the way the sun became famous through its shadow.
From his nature comes the sky, a censer whose smoke and incense fill the nostrils of the higher world.
The sweetness of his speech, on the palate of the thirsty intellect, settles like wine in the nature of one already drunk.
When he composes verse in praise of his own generosity, whole seas of meter rise wave upon wave.
How distinguished in essence and quality among all the world's people, like the fire of Mount Sinai among lights, itself pure light.
The order of your sciences shames the threading of pearls; the pearls scattered loose are captives of your prose.
The brilliance of wisdom is a star to the heaven of faith; the jewels of your words are a guide-law to the kingdom of religious law.
Each night, to keep watch over the world, the sky draws the dust of your feet as a collyrium of light into the eyes of the stars.
In the workshop of destiny, the powers that govern all affairs draw their help from you to bind and loosen their aims.
In the realm of fate the commands of Be! enter through your thought and issue from your breast.
For the sake of honor, the dust of your road upon the body is a thousand times finer than satin and fine silk.
A single moment resting in the shade of your street wall is better to me than the shade of the Tuba tree, the houris, and the palaces of paradise.
What are thorns and straw to your sanctuary, what are the wings of angels, when the throng of houris have swept it with their tresses?
In a dwelling swept by the wings of angels, what joys one can find, to the blinding spite of the enemy!
Each one inclines to his own nature, no harm in that, even if the crowd of foes has chosen against you.
If few people walk your path, what does it matter? You are a bridge over hell, and crossing the bridge is hard.
If your followers are few, no grief: a thousand drops become, in time, a single pearl.
The pearl, born of pure clay, is that rare; the shard, born of base substance, is that abundant.
In rank, the human stands above all creation, yet in numbers human beings fall short even of the ants.
Look at the human race itself: among their multitude, the distance between a true human and a false one is vast.
A thousand drops of seed are needed for one to gain the full capacity for all the stages of being.
And once it has that capacity, ages must pass before even one ripens, with a hundred hardships and great force.
And once it ripens, scarcely one in a hundred thousand turns out so that it brings light to the eye and joy to the heart.
My lord, sun of the world, my soul, you are the one in whom the secret of prophecy found its full appearing.
You are the essence of the Family, the choicest of the line; through you the Prophet's spirit is gladdened forever.
You are the one upon whose face, behind the veil of fate for an age, pre-eternity gazed from afar.
The eternity to come, that has hidden its face in the veil of the unseen, keeps its eye on the road, awaiting the lasting of your reign.
What need is there for reason to describe your essence, when your face appears unveiled even to a blind eye?
I am one of the servants of your court, whose tongue is forever a flame of light in your praise.
I am one whose mind, from contemplating the praise of your presence, has become a pavilion of houris within its inner curtains.
I hold a thousand lovely images drawn in dark ink, brighter of face than the work of Shapur's brush.
In this ode you have aided my spirit; otherwise the strength for it would have stayed bound in 'Zahir.'
Now this alone is my hope in both worlds: that God may raise me up among the dogs of your door.
Like the sun I light up the wheel of this dusty earth; how shall I carry the lamp of your love into the lonely grave?
Though the failings of this lavish sinner mount higher and higher, the forgiving God will surely pardon his sins for your sake.
As long as the universal intellect has a collar, may the breast of my pen be radiant with light from your praise.
May my hand stay joined to the hem of your grace, like the longing hand of the ascetic reaching for the hem of a houri.