This midnight who has come like moonshine? It is the messenger of love, coming from the prayer-niche.
Bringing a torch, he has set fire to sleep; he has come from the presence of the unsleepy king.
Who is this who has started all this tumult in the city, who came upon the harvest of the darvish like a flood?
Who is this? Say, for in all the world there is none but he, a king came to the door of the house of a doorkeeper.
Who is this who has spread such a table of bounty, who has come laughing, to lead the companions to the table?
A cup is in his hand which makes an end of the dervish; from that grape’s juice the color stains his lips.
Hearts are trembling, all souls impatient—one fraction of that trembling has fallen upon quicksilver.
That gentleness and grace with which he treats his servant is the same gentleness and grace which make the ermine.
Of that lament and those tears which are the dry and wet of love, one gentle melody has reached the waterwheel.
A bunch of keys is under love’s armpit, come to open all the gates.
Bird of the heart, if the hunter has broken your wings, yet the bird escapes from the snare when it is beaten and broken [dead].
Silence! Embodied similitudes are not mannerly, or manners have never entered your ear.
