Number 7

Anyone who doesn't drink like a flower during the season of flowers, imagine they never existed in this world at all. The keen-eyed narcissus, once it saw the ways of the world, chose nothing but drunkenness and watching. Since the breeze became a weaver of robes and the cloud a scatterer of pearls, no beauty in the world is left without necklace and bracelet. The rose, shamed by the nightingale, tore its garment; for the bird is a great talker, and the rose cannot speak. If the tulip's wine cup shattered, that is only right, since hard granite is no place for playing with a fragile bowl. When the color and scent of milk comes from the lily's lips, why then is it not swaddled like a bud in a cradle? The wild rose on the bush and the blossom's petals in the air, in their outward forms, are nothing but fixed stars and wandering planets. Beneath its shirt the rose's beauty has no color, for the source of its charm is nothing but its face. Though sparks of fire may leap from hard granite, the tulip's fire was not struck from any stone. Among the cypress and the lily a heavy goblet of wine is needed; the gathering of free spirits cannot do without weight.