Lovers, lovers, whoever sees His face, his reason becomes distraught, his habit confounded.
He becomes a seeker of the Beloved, his shop is ruined, he runs headlong like water in his river.
He becomes in love like Majn¯un, head spinning like the sky; whoever is sick like this, his remedy is unobtainable.
The angels prostrate before him who became God’s dust, the Turk of heaven becomes the servant of him who has become His Hindu [slave].
His love places the aching heart on his hand and smells it; how did not that rejoice which has become His.
Many a breast He has wounded, many a sleep He has barred; that magical glance of His has bound the hand of the magicians.
Kings are all His beggars, beauties clippings of His [beauty], lions drop their tail on the earth before His street-dogs.
Glance once at heaven, at the fortress of the spiritual ones, so many lamps and torches on His towers and battlements.
The keeper of His fortress is Universal Reason, that king without drum and tabor; he alone climbs that fortress who no longer possesses his own ownness.
Moon, have you seen His face and stolen beauty from Him? Night, have you seen His hair? No, no, not one hair of Him.
This night wears black as a sign of mourning, like a blackrobed widow whose husband has gone into the earth.
Night makes a pretense and imposture; secretly it makes merry, its eye closes no eye, its brow is set awry.
Night, I do not believe this lamenting of yours; you are running like a ball before the mallet of fate.
He who is struck by His mallet carries the ball of happiness, he runs headlong like the heart about His street.
Our cheeks are like saffron through love of His tulip bed, our heart is sunk like a comb in His hair.
Where is love’s back? Love is all face, back and face belong to this side, His side is only face.
He is free of form, His business is all form-fashioning. O heart, you will never transcend form because you are not single with Him.
The heart of every pure man knows the voice of the heart from the voice of clay; this is the roaring of a lion in the form of His deer.
What is woven by the hand of the One becomes revealed, becomes revealed from the workmanship of the weaver and his hand and shuttle.
O souls His shuttle, O our qibla His street, heaven is the sweeper of this street, this earth its mistress.
My heart is burning with envy for Him, my eyes have become His water bags: how should He be wet with tears, while the sea is up to His knees?
This love has become my guest, struck a blow against my soul; a hundred compassions and a hundred blessings to his hand and arm!
I flung away hand and foot and had done with searching; my searching is dead before His searching.
Often I said, “O heart, be silent to this heart’s passion”; my h¯a is useless when my heart hears His h¯u.
