وقت محنت گشته‌ای الله گو ** چونک محنت رفت گویی راه کو
At the time of tribulation thou hast called unto God, (but) when the tribulation is gone, thou sayest, “Where is the way?”
این از آن آمد که حق را بی گمان ** هر که بشناسد بود دایم بر آن
This is because (thou dost not know God): every one that knows God without uncertainty is constantly engaged in that (commemoration of Him),
وانک در عقل و گمان هستش حجاب ** گاه پوشیدست و گه بدریده جیب
While he that is veiled in intellect and uncertainty is sometimes covered (inaccessible to spiritual emotion) and sometimes with his collar torn (in a state of rapture).
The particular (discursive) intellect is sometimes dominant, sometimes overthrown; the Universal Intellect is secure from the mischances of Time.
عقل بفروش و هنر حیرت بخر ** رو به خواری نه بخارا ای پسر
Sell intellect and talent and buy bewilderment (in God): betake thyself to lowliness, O son, not to Bukhárá!
ما چه خود را در سخن آغشته‌ایم ** کز حکایت ما حکایت گشته‌ایم
Why have I steeped myself in the discourse, so that from story-telling I have become a story?
من عدم و افسانه گردم در حنین ** تا تقلب یابم اندر ساجدین
I become naught and (unsubstantial as) a fable in making moan (to God), in order that I may gain influence over (the hearts of) them that prostrate themselves in prayer.
این حکایت نیست پیش مرد کار ** وصف حالست و حضور یار غار
This (story of Moses and Pharaoh) is not a story in the eyes of the man of experience: it is a description of an actual (spiritual) state, and it is (equivalent to) the presence of the Friend of the Cave.
آن اساطیر اولین که گفت عاق ** حرف قرآن را بد آثار نفاق1150
That (phrase) “stories of the ancients,” which the disobedient (infidels) applied to the words of the Qur’án, was a mark of (their) hypocrisy.
لامکانی که درو نور خداست ** ماضی و مستقبل و حال از کجاست
The man transcending space, in whom is the Light of God— whence (what concern of his) is the past, the future, or the present?