I went to the physician of the soul, I said, “Look at my hand. I am heartlorn and sick at once, both lover and intoxicated.
I have a hundred ailments—would that they were all one! With all these distempers I have reached the very end.”
He said, “Were you not dead?” I said, “Yes, but when your scent came to me I leaped out of the grave.”
That spiritual form, that orient divine, that Joseph of Canaan on whose account I wounded my hand,
Gently, gently came towards me and laid a hand on my heart. He said, “Of what band are you?” I said, “Of this band.”
When I brawled he gave me wine, and I drank; my pale cheek glowed and I ceased to brawl.
Then I stripped off my clothes, I raged like a drunkard, I sat in that drunkards’ ring, on the right hand.
I drank a hundred jars, I roared a hundred ways, I scattered a hundred glasses, I shattered a hundred pitchers.
Those folk worshipped the golden calf; I am a mangy calf, if I do not worship Love.
Again the spiritual king is secretly calling me, he is drawing me up royally from these depths.
I am foot-tied to you, O soul, I am intoxicated with you, my soul, I am in your hand, my soul, whether I am arrow or thumbstall.
If I am nimble, you make me so, if I am drunk you make me so, if I am lowly you make me so, if I am in being, you make me so.
You brought me into the circling sphere when you intoxicated me with you; since now you have sealed the vat, I too have closed my mouth.
