I said to my heart, “Why are you thus? How long will you consort with love?”
The heart said, “Why do you not also come to experience the delights of love?”
Even if you know the water of life, how shall you choose aught but the fire of love?
You in subtlety have become as the wind, you are full of wine as the bumper glass.
Like water, you give life to images; like a mirror, you are a trustee of beauty.
Every mean soul that has not those properties may think that you are the same—
O you who are the soul of heaven, even though in form you are of earth.
O fine-crumbled as surmeh, you are the surmeh of the eye of certainty.
O ruby, of which mine are you? Enter the ring, for you are a fine signet.
A thousand compassions are ashamed before you the moment you are full of wrath as a sword.
Shams-i Tabr¯ız, your form is lovely, and what a sweet source you are in meaning!
