Ghazal No. 31

The fervent quality of verse comes from the heart’s ecstatic cry. This candle is alight thanks to the heart, which is its moth.

A handful of mere dust, we had no gusto for lament. Our clamour is all due to the rotation of the heart’s wine-cup.

This dark abode of dust, which you have named the world, is just a worn-out image from the idol-temple of the heart.

Sitting in his observatory, the star-gazing astronomer is looking for the boundary of the heart’s wilderness.

Celestial beings are caught in the lasso of His glance. The Sufi is a victim of the depredations of the heart.

Mahmud of Ghazna, who razed idol-houses to the ground, himself became a votary of the heart’s idol-house.

One more insouciant than the Muslim I have never seen. He has a heart in his breast, yet he is a stranger to the heart.