غزل شمارهٔ 1201

Night is broad and long for the sake of lovers and thieves; ho, come, strumpet night, and do the business of both!

I steal carnelians and pearls from the sultan’s treasury, I am not mean that I should steal the draper’s cloth.

Within the veil of the nights there are subtle thieves who by cunning find a way to the roof of the house of mystery.

My ambition in night-faring and knavery is nothing less than the king’s treasury and the carnelian of that king of glory.

The cheek before whose onslaught night remains no more in the world—brave lamp, which lights the sun and fashions the moon!

All the needs of men are granted on the Night of Power, for Power attained that exaltation from a full moon like you.

You are all, and beyond all what else is there, that it should enter the imagination that anyone is your peer?

Ho, pass away from this; open wide your ears, for I am beginning a tale entirely rare and strange.

Since you have not seen Messiah, give ear to the legend; fly like a white falcon towards the falcon-drum.

Since you are a coin of red gold, receive the seal of the king; if you are not red gold, then why all this snipping?

In the time when you became a treasure you did not realize that, wherever a treasure is, the informer sets to work.

Bring your treasure, and play no tricks, for you will not escape by vapouring and prostration and commemoration and abstinence and prayer.

Do you steal, and then sit in the corner of the mosque saying, “I am the Junaid of the age, the B¯a Yaz¯ıd of supplication”?

Give back the cloth, then get on with your abstinence; do not make feeble excuses and babble your tale.

Hush your pretexts, for in this station men do not purchase a single grain by dissimulation and artful trickery.

Seize the skirt of felicity of Shams-i Tabr¯ız¯ı, that your perfection may be embroidered from the magic of his sleeve.