What light is that in the midst of the darkness of your soul? A royal splendor is shining in my heart—who is that?
It appears that it is the fantasy of the king’s moonlike face, that it is the succoring shelter of the day of misery.
All this splendor and beauty and grace and loveliness and charm is the Pride of Souls, Shams-i H. aqq-i D¯ın-i Tabr¯ız¯ı.
The human soul cannot endure the clear exposition of his qualities; all that it can endure of his qualities, my heart, is by allusion.
For how should eternal qualities display themselves in mortality to a mixture which itself is of the mortal world?
How far does that beauty, which God engraved of His own hand, transcend an image created by ¯Azar or M¯an¯ı!
The eye that has beheld him, and then looked on another than him, must be stoned, for it is worthless.
O heart, in loverhood abandon your good name, for the beginning of love is notoriety and evil fame.
In the sea of his love the soul’s clothes are an embarrassment; to seek in love for name and bread is rawness, my heart.
Even the love of the generality of people has this specialty, my heart; all the more especially this love which belongs to that lofty assembly.
Zephyr, bring the earth of Tabriz as a present for my sake, for in preciousness it compares with a jewel of the quarry.
