Amazing keeper of the hot baths! When he comes forth from seclusion, every painted figure of the baths falls into prostration!
The figures, frozen, unconscious, dead—from the reflection of his eyes their eyes open large as narcissi.
Through his ears their ears become familiar with fables, through his eyes their eyes become receptive of vistas.
You behold every single bath-figure drunk and dancing, like a boon companion who from time to time plunges in red wine.
The courtyard of the baths is full of their clamour and shouting; the riotous clamour marks the first day of resurrection.
The figures call one another unto themselves; one figure from that corner there comes laughing to another figure.
But no form discovers the bath-keeper himself, for all that form is running hither and thither in search of him.
All are distracted, he behind and before them, unrecognized, the king of the souls comes at the head of the army.
The rosebed of every mind is filled with roses from his cheeks; the skirt of every beggar is filled with gold from his hand.
Hold your basket before him, that he may fill it of himself, so that the basket of your poverty may become the despair of Sanjar.
Judge and plaintiff alike flee from less and more, when that moon for one moment enters drunk into the assembly.
The wine becomes the tavern, the dead become riotous drunk, the wood becomes the Moaning Pillar when he enters the pulpit.
He denies them his presence, and their forms freeze, their eyes vanish, their ears become deaf.
When he appears again their eyes open, the garden becomes full of birds, the orchard is verdant.
Go to the rosebed and the garden, behold the friends and the chatter; in the wake of this expression the soul comes to that pass.
How can one tell what was manifested, friend? How can the pen indite that, for all that it enters the inkholder?
