This time, I really got involved with Love
and separated completely from devoutness.
I am no longer alive because of my heart.
I am alive with something else.
I burned my mind from the bottom up
and did the same with my heart and thoughts.
O people, O people, don’t expect me
to act like an ordinary human anymore.
I have fallen into such reflection
that not even someone insane could think my thoughts.
The insane ones who have seen my craziness
have run away from me with foaming mouths.
I joined with death and flew to the Land of Nothingness.
My mind is totally annoyed with me today.
He tried to scare me, as though I had never seen him before.
Why should I be afraid of him? I have dressed a different form for him.
How can I be a treasure? I have been hidden in a corner.
I care for neither the bowl of stars nor the table of fortune.
For the poor, I lick so many plates and fall into so much disgrace.
Because of the donkey’s jealousy and evil eye,
I have been engulfed by blood in this dungeon of flesh,
dragging my bloody shirt over the ground.
I entered this world’s jail for only one affair.
Otherwise, where am I?
Where is the jail? Whose goods did I steal?
I am nourished by blood
like an embryo inside the mother’s womb.
Man is born once.
How many times have I been born?
Look at me carefully as long as you want.
Still, you won’t recognize me,
because you haven’t seen enough of me.
I have hundreds of attributes.
Get into my eyes.
Look at me through my eyes.
I have chosen a different mansion beyond my eyes.
You are drunk with wine.
I am drunk without it.
You are a lover with a smile.
I keep smiling without mouth or lips.
I am such a funny bird that when I was hungry,
I flew from the meadow into a cage.
There was no hunter, no trap.
With friends, a cage is better than a garden and meadow.
For the honor of Joseph, I stayed at the bottom of the well.
I made my home there.
Don’t cry because of the suffering He gives.
Don’t complain because you are sick.
I bought troubles by giving hundreds of sweet lives.
The silkworm keeps busy knitting silk.
Listen to me. I am also a silkworm.
I keep knitting trouble, winding the silk of trouble.
I have been decaying in the grave of flesh.
Go to my Archangel who will blow the last trumpet for me.
I will be resurrected.
I have gone to pieces by sleeping in this grave of flesh.
No, you should close your eyes by yourself
like an experienced falcon.
Don’t say you dress in heavy garments like a peacock.
Kneel down in front of the doctor and ask for an antidote,
because in this mighty trap,
I’ve drunk so much poison, so much poison.
You will be sweetened in front of the person who sells sweetmeats.
Your soul will be light and sweet.
I have never heard anything from the soul’s sweetmeat except,
“Come on.”
He makes you sweetmeat itself, which is better than giving it to you.
I haven’t found any place to get the taste or to hear of sweetmeats
except from His lips.
Be silent. While talking, you may drop the sweetmeat from your mouth.
Like me, everyone can get the fragrance without words.
Every unripe grape is yelling,
“O Shems of Tebriz, come help me.
I am crying from tastelessness and immaturity.
Divan-i Kebir, Volume 1, ghazal 72, verses 899-922, pages 173-175.