چون نشینی بر سر کوی کسی ** عاقبت بینی تو هم روی کسی
When you sit (wait) on the road of a certain person, at last you will see also the face of a certain person.
چون ز چاهی می‌کنی هر روز خاک ** عاقبت اندر رسی در آب پاک
When, every day, you keep digging the earth from a pit, at last you will arrive at the pure water.
جمله دانند این اگر تو نگروی ** هر چه می‌کاریش روزی بدروی4785
(Even) if you may not believe (it), all know this, (that) one day you will reap whatsoever you are sowing.
سنگ بر آهن زدی آتش نجست ** این نباشد ور بباشد نادرست
You struck the stone (flint) against the iron (steel): the fire did not flash out! This may not be; or if it be (so), ’tis rare.
آنک روزی نیستش بخت و نجات ** ننگرد عقلش مگر در نادرات
He to whom felicity and salvation are not apportioned (by God)—his mind regards naught but the rarities.
کان فلان کس کشت کرد و بر نداشت ** و آن صدف برد و صدف گوهر نداشت
(He says) that such and such a one sowed seed and had no crop, while that (other) one bore away an oyster-shell (from the sea), and the shell had no pearl (within it).
بلعم باعور و ابلیس لعین ** سود نامدشان عبادتها و دین
(He says that in the cases of) Bal‘am son of Bá‘úr and the accursed Iblís, their acts of worship and their religion availed them not.
صد هزاران انبیا و ره‌روان ** ناید اندر خاطر آن بدگمان4790
The hundreds of thousands of prophets and travellers on the Way do not come into the mind of that evil-thinking man.
این دو را گیرد که تاریکی دهد ** در دلش ادبار جز این کی نهد
He takes these two (examples) which produce (spiritual) darkness: how should (his) ill fate put aught but this in his heart?
بس کسا که نان خورد دلشاد او ** مرگ او گردد بگیرد در گلو
Oh, there is many a one that eats bread with a glad heart, and it becomes the death of him: it sticks in his gullet.