Song for the Cupbearer

Come, cupbearer, my heart is unsettled because of you; in this tavern, every word spoken is yours. Give me a cup, for I am in a wretched state; my grieving heart is in torment. Healer, now that your youth has slipped away, the days of pleasure and delight are gone. Now think, the time has come, the time has come; take up silence, the time has come, the time has come. Go to the corner of solitude with a glad heart, for the corner of solitude is a charming place. So many gatherings, so many feasts you have seen; so often you drank from the cup of revelry. Step aside, for your arrow has flown from the bow; don't sit ashamed because your quarry escaped your hands. Flee from the fist of a few ignorant fools; and give your hand to a few who are idle and unhurried. For perhaps in the end your wish will be fulfilled, and your name will rise among the accomplished. How long will your heart be troubled by loneliness? Your friends have gone, and you still sleep, how long? Don't sleep in this valley; rise up; draw a drink of water from this spring and rise. If you circle the horizons like a star, you will reach the top of this blue dome of sky. Behind the veil there is no path for searching; not all secrets are granted leave to be spoken. Your hidden secrets may be unraveled if you rise up from this heap of ash. O Lord, grant this ashamed 'Tabib,' this captive of the clay-and-water world, freedom from this prison of grief; on this ruined road, grant him a flourishing. I am like a tulip set down in the open plain, fallen in the dust and sitting in blood. Like Majnun, locked in struggle with my own fate, sunk to the waist like a mountain in stone. In this wilderness of sorrow I see no companion who has risen with me but the mountain. Yet even it, what does it know of companionship? What does mere stone know of the way of friendship?