Ghazal No. 17

From your own dust elicit the fire that is not yet aflame. It is not worthwhile borrowing the radiance of others.

I would not give for Jamshid’s realm Naziri’s line: ‘One who has not been killed can never have been from our tribe.’

That sorcerer, the intellect, attacks you with a host; but do not be dismayed, for Love is not alone.

You do not know the rah, and you are ignorant of the maqam. There is no tune which is not in Sulayma’s lute.

I have my eyes so fixed on myself that, although the beauty of my Friend has conquered the whole world, I have no time to look at it.

Come, let us make an uproar in the city of the lovely. The madness of the lively does not seek a desert for a roaming ground.

Come; tell a tale about the hunting of the monsters of the sea. Do not say that your boat is unused to the sea’s ways.

O I admire the courage of a traveller who does not tread an easy path that does not pass through deserts, over mountains, across streams.

Live in the company of lively revellers. Shun the discipleship of one who is not an uproarious man.

The acme of expression is not to speak in bare, literal terms the speech of inmates of the inner circle is always in symbols and in signs.