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او چو فرعونست در قحط آنچنان ** پیش موسی سر نهد لابه‌کنان 3625
- It is like Pharaoh: in (the time of) famine it lays its head before Moses, as he (Pharaoh) did, making supplication;
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چونک مستغنی شد او طاغی شود ** خر چو بار انداخت اسکیزه زند
- (But) when it has been freed from want, it rebels (once more) when the donkey has cast off his load, he kicks.
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پس فراموشش شود چون رفت پیش ** کار او زان آه و زاریهای خویش
- So, when its business has gone forward (prosperously), it (the carnal soul) forgets its sighs and lamentations.
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سالها مردی که در شهری بود ** یک زمان که چشم در خوابی رود
- The man who lives in a city (many) years, as soon as his eye goes asleep,
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شهر دیگر بیند او پر نیک و بد ** هیچ در یادش نیاید شهر خود
- Beholds another city full of good and evil, and his own city comes not into his memory at all,
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که من آنجا بوده‌ام این شهر نو ** نیست آن من درینجاام گرو 3630
- So that (he should say), “I have lived there (so many years); this new city is not mine: here I am (only) in pawn.”
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بل چنان داند که خود پیوسته او ** هم درین شهرش به دست ابداع و خو
- Nay, he thinks that in sooth he has always lived in this very city and has been born and bred in it.
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چه عجب گر روح موطنهای خویش ** که بدستش مسکن و میلاد پیش
- What wonder (then) if the spirit does not remember its (ancient) abodes, which have been its dwelling-place and birthplace aforetime,
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می‌نیارد یاد کین دنیا چو خواب ** می‌فرو پوشد چو اختر را سحاب
- Since this world, like sleep, is covering it over as clouds cover the stars? —
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خاصه چندین شهرها را کوفته ** گردها از درک او ناروفته
- Especially as it has trodden so many cities, and the dust has not (yet) been swept from its perceptive faculty,