Ghazal No. 19

A hundred nights of wailing, a hundred mornings of travail, a hundred fire-emitting sighs: The product? One poignant verse.

Do you know how you can tell love from lust? The former is Farhad’s pickaxe, the latter is Parvez’s guile.

Tell those behind the inner curtain this: The handful of dust that is; I is dust that sees, is dust that raises storms.

A pleasing song sung by an early morning bird intoxicates me and enraptures me, O saki, O musician.

From Samarkand, I fear, there may arise again the threat of a Hulaku or the terror of a Genghis Khan.

O singer, sing a ghazal or a couplet of the holy guide of Rum, so that my soul may be immersed in the fire of Tabriz.