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How can I resolve this problem of my heart

          when the Beloved’s demand is so difficult?

Before telling me anything about Himself

          first He makes me die.


The cupbearer won’t pour the wine of love

          into the heart’s cup

unless one vows to renounce

          both religion and reason.


No one is sober

          in the tavern of Unity;

there, no drunkard will find fault

          with other drunks.


Those afflicted with pain for Him,

          never search for a cure.

His destitute beggar will never find

          the comfort of a home.


In the land of lovers,

          no enraptured one will gain subsistence

unless he first receives the command

          for his own banishment and fana.


We saw that the Beloved was Himself the compensation

          for those slain by love;

that is not to say that Nurbakhsh

          will not demand a price from those slain by him.

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