Nothing but Sorrow

Our life yields nothing but trouble, and time gives us no share except weariness. Don't hope for a lucky throw from the dice of this world; this five-day game is nothing but a passing dream. High rank, glory, power, and wealth come only with the stain of instability, flaw, and ruin. Happy is the mind that never craved rank and glory; glad is the heart that isn't chasing power and wealth. Don't seek your bread from the table of the stingy, for to those who walk the true path that morsel is forbidden. Look at the ways of the world with the eye of reason; don't ask how anyone is doing, for there's no room to ask. Like the twisted curls of the beauties of this land, wherever there's defiance, it ends in nothing but being trampled. In this flood of turmoil where all people have fallen, there's no rescuer but the mercy of the Glorious God. My heart has been freed from grief so completely that from now on there is no way for joy to find a place in it. I'd give my life for the wise one who said: 'Shiraz is no place for people of true worth.' Poverty, exile, and hardship have gone beyond all limits; I, Obeyd, can bear no more than this.