نقش میبینی که در آیینهای است ** نقش تست آن نقش آن آیینه نیست
You behold the image which is in a mirror: it is your (own) image, it is not the image of the mirror.
دم که مرد نایی اندر نای کرد ** در خور نای است نه در خورد مرد
The breath which the flute-player puts into the flute—does it belong to the flute? No, it belongs to the man (the flute-player).
هان و هان گر حمد گویی گر سپاس ** همچو نافرجام آن چوپان شناس
Take good heed! Whether you speak praise (of God) or thanksgiving, know that it is even as the unseemly (words) of that shepherd.
حمد تو نسبت بدان گر بهتر است ** لیک آن نسبت به حق هم ابتر است1795
Though your praise is better in comparison with that, yet in relation to God it too is maimed (feeble).
چند گویی چون غطا برداشتند ** کاین نبوده ست آن که میپنداشتند
How often will you say, when the lid has been raised, “This was not what they were thinking (it was)!”
این قبول ذکر تو از رحمت است ** چون نماز مستحاضه رخصت است
This acceptance (by God) of your praise is from (His) mercy: it is an indulgence (which He grants), like (the indulgence granted in the case of) the prayers of a woman suffering from menorrhagia.
با نماز او بیالوده ست خون ** ذکر تو آلودهی تشبیه و چون
Her prayers are stained with blood; your praise is stained with assimilation and qualification.
خون پلید است و به آبی میرود ** لیک باطن را نجاستها بود
Blood is foul, and (yet) it goes (is washed away) by a (little) water; but the inward part (the inner man) hath impurities
کان به غیر آب لطف کردگار ** کم نگردد از درون مرد کار1800
Which fail not (are not removed) from the interior (the heart) of the man of works except by the water of the grace of the Maker.
در سجودت کاش رو گردانیای ** معنی سبحان ربی دانیای
Would that in your bowing low in prayer you would turn your face (to attentive consideration) and apprehend the meaning of “Glory to my Lord!”