Fragments

If I could find a corner beyond both worlds, I would go there and live in solitude, away from everyone. An eye without tears has no light, like the glass of spectacles; like a candle, I longed to find an eye that weeps. The gathering of pleasure scattered like the petals of a rose; so in this garden I went to open my heart like a budding flower.

You whose qualities are praised: when the heavens give, they sew a thousand eyes upon your hand from the stars. It is only fitting that, for your gathering, gifts should pour unasked: musk from the deer's pod, sugar from the cane, pearls from the shell. When your face flushes with the fire of anger, the heat of your features turns flame itself to water. When you mount your horse, formed like the sky, a cry of praise rises from the heart of the eastern sun. As long as pearls are strung in a line, as long as a crown is adorned with jewels, may your enemy be worthless in your eyes, like a bare thread, and may the one who loves your honor be precious as a gem. You whose rank is the sky, my master: though my heart is wounded by the cruelty of this base, fawning world, why should I take my complaint to fate? Mercy was never the companion of a heartless creature. While I shelter in your protection, what do I fear from disaster? Once a candle sits behind its screen, why dread the storm wind? Some time ago I borrowed, like a bud reaching out, a handful of gold from the garden of your generosity. If you do not ask it back from me, nothing could be better; if you must, then wait until my next wages come.

The lamp of love burns bright from the wound in my heart; the moth that circles it is made from my own clay. A free spirit needs no one to untie life's knots; like the cypress, the knot in my heart is my own doing.

If my eye thirsts for the sight of you, that sight is not far off; like a pearl, it can only be raised in bitter, salty water. For the mystics, who are like bubbles in the sea of being, there is not a single moment when the house of the heart is not alive with longing for your love.

You are the leader of the caravan, and we are the weary travelers; don't forget your travelers, leader of the caravan. In the gathering where you light up every face around you, the virtuous sit close, like a halo around the moon.

Don't blame me, my dear, if the market is slow: I'm a worthy servant; it's just that no master is buying. Who can I tell this to: that his cruelty has left me with plenty to complain about, but no strength to say it?

In this world no true judge ever rises from the courts of judgment; where is the one who would permit cruelty against his own loyal soldiers? Only after the chance slipped from my hands did my eyes finally open; I let a precious pearl fall, and only then did fortune make me a jeweler.

Her drowsy eyes, like a wine cup, filled so full with my heart's blood that her lashes turned blood red, sharp as a killer's dagger. It seems my fate holds no happiness; when time shaped my clay, it mixed the water of my making with tears from weeping eyes.

Though I can't reach the hem of that moon-faced beauty, thank God my hand isn't kept from my own collar. Even in her absence she comforts her friends; how happy is the one whose state no one knows of.

If fate tears me away from that one perfect pearl, I'll become like an empty shell, my whole body wringing its hands in regret. I fear that the fire your love kindles above my head will slowly wear me down and bring me to my knees, like a candle.

For a lifetime my heart has complained of the sorrow of these times; my mirror complains of the troubled image it must hold. Honor itself complains bitterly about my disgrace; from my stains, the purity of innocence files its protest.

You won't listen to my cries, or maybe my pleas never reach your ears. You are Layla and I am Majnun; you are Shirin and I am Farhad.

When the heart slips away from itself, it grows bewildered like an astonished eye. How lucky is that lover who dissolves entirely into the beloved's face. It would be unfair to lift it up only for prayer, that familiar hand which is busy tearing open the collar in grief.