Only by the sword of love
will my heart be torn to shreds
and my eyes become
fountains of my heart’s blood.
Our hearts cannot contain
anything but His fire.
Without His Qur’an-like face
my heart cannot be split into thirty parts.
I am a lover in a wretched state,
so don’t imagine that I am idle.
Whoever is a lover
is never without work.
He who has become a Majnun due to Layli’s face
will not go insane;
one who is lost in His district
will not become an aimless wanderer.
The rend will not remove his lips
from the goblet’s rim,
while the sheikh, in his sobriety,
will never taste wine.
The one enraptured by His face
will be firm in love;
he journeys within himself,
and will not become a vagabond.
By the pure love of God
the lover is innocent,
and the soul within him
will never become a tyrant.
If light is bestowed
it is because that enraptured one
will never stop waiting by
the tavern door.