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هر که بنهد سنت بد ای فتا ** تا در افتد بعد او خلق از عمی
- Whosoever institutes an evil practice, O youth, in order that people may blindly fall in after him,
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جمع گردد بر وی آن جمله بزه ** کو سری بودست و ایشان دم‌غزه
- All their guilt is collected (and piled) on him, for he has been (as) a head (to them), while they are (like) the root of the tail.
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لیک آدم چارق و آن پوستین ** پیش می‌آورد که هستم ز طین
- But Adam brought forward (and kept in view) the rustic shoon and sheepskin jacket, saying, “I am of clay.”
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چون ایاز آن چارقش مورود بود ** لاجرم او عاقبت محمود بود
- By him, as by Ayáz, those shoon were (often) visited: consequently he was lauded in the end.
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هست مطلق کارساز نیستیست ** کارگاه هست‌کن جز نیست چیست 1960
- The Absolute Being is a worker in non-existence: what but non-existence is the workshop (working material) of the Maker of existence?
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بر نوشته هیچ بنویسد کسی ** یا نهاله کارد اندر مغرسی
- Does one write anything on what is (already) written over, or plant a sapling in a place (already) planted?
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کاغذی جوید که آن بنوشته نیست ** تخم کارد موضعی که کشته نیست
- (No); he seeks a sheet of paper that has not been written on and sows the seed in a place that has not been sown.
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تو برادر موضع ناکشته باش ** کاغذ اسپید نابنوشته باش
- Be thou, O brother, a place unsown; be a white paper untouched by writing,
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تا مشرف گردی از نون والقلم ** تا بکارد در تو تخم آن ذوالکرم
- That thou mayst be ennobled by Nún wa ’l-Qalam, and that the Gracious One may sow seed within thee.
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خود ازین پالوه نالیسیده گیر ** مطبخی که دیده‌ای نادیده گیر 1965
- Assume, indeed, that thou hast never licked (tasted) this pálúda (honeycake); assume that thou hast never seen the kitchen which thou hast seen,