غزل شمارهٔ 2984

Bird-catcher, you have set a hidden snare; over the snare you have laid smoke-colored fabric.

Too many thousands of birds you have slain by this trick and laid all the feathers plucked as a sign.

The birds that are your watchmen make a great cry; what meanings you have planted in their cries!

For the thirsty birds you have placed in the taverns of your proximity vats of Magian wines.

That vat, the scent of which neither saki nor drunkard catches, you have laid down for the sake of the nightfarer that you know.

In patience and penitence you have compounded the immunity of the shield; in cruelty and wrath you have set a lance.

Without the danger of lance and shield, you have implanted for the pious believers a kingdom in the seven oft-repeated verses.

Under the black of the eye you have made the wave of light flow, and in that aged world you have set youthfulness.

In the breast which fashions forms out of imagination, you have placed a finger without pen and finger.

Though so many veils of flesh and sinew lie over the heart, you have given the heart penetration and visible passage.

Which is stranger—the glance that flies like an arrow, or the brow you have set as a bow?

Or that in vessel-like bodies you implanted various characters like wines bitter and sweet,

Or that this secret liquor distilled from the tongue you have placed on the tongue as the cream of speech?

Every essence and accident is as a mouth-shut bud which you have set as a veil over the cradle of virgins.

On the day when you cause them to blossom and remove those veils, O soul of the soul of the soul, what soul you will have implanted!

Restless hearts will see for what reason in separation you have placed entreaty and yearning.

Silence, that that soul may speak the spoken things; why have you implanted this long conjury?