If you’re Love’s lover and seek Love
Cut modesty’s throat with a knife.

Know that renown hinders insight;
And, thinking clearly, understand.

Did the madman reveal his madness?
Did he, the Wild One, display his guile?

He tore his clothes, climbed mountains,
Drank poison and chose death.

Like a spider seizing its victim, the Lord
Is capable of seizing us in his web!

Only Laila’s face embodies such love
So why did the Wild One leave us?

Have you read the divans of Waisa and Ramin
The stories of Wamiq and Adra?

You raise your clothes for fear of wetting them
Knowing that into the sea you must plunge.

Depravity and drunkenness are Love’s way
As torrents descend rather than rise.

You will be a rock in a ring of lovers
The stone’s slave as we are yours.

Even as the sky enslaves the earth
Even as the spirit enslaves the body.

What does the earth lose by being bound
As limbs are by the sweetness of reason?

Don’t beat a drum under your blanket,
Brave man, plant your banner in the desert.

Soul, listen to all the innumerable sounds
Echoing like a lover’s lament in a green dome.

When the buttons on your shirt burst open
Know it’s caused by the drunkenness of Love.

Behold, Heaven’s triumph, and Orion’s surprise!
How the world over is troubled by Love

Yet purified throughout, just as the sun
Slays night, and affliction trails after joy.

I am silent. Speak, Wild One, whose face
Every atom in the universe adores.