هر چه نفست خواست داری اختیار ** هر چه عقلت خواست آری اضطرار
Whatever your fleshly soul desires, you have free-will (in regard to that); whatever your reason desires, you plead necessity (as an excuse for rejecting it).
داند او کو نیک‌بخت و محرمست ** زیرکی ز ابلیس و عشق از آدمست
He that is blessed and familiar (with spiritual mysteries) knows that intelligence is of Iblís, while love is of Adam.
زیرکی سباحی آمد در بحار ** کم رهد غرقست او پایان کار
Intelligence is (like) swimming in the seas: he (the swimmer) is not saved: he is drowned at the end of the business.
هل سباحت را رها کن کبر و کین ** نیست جیحون نیست جو دریاست این
Leave off swimming, let pride and enmity go: this is not a Jayhun (Oxus) or a (lesser) river, it is an ocean;
وانگهان دریای ژرف بی‌پناه ** در رباید هفت دریا را چو کاه1405
And, moreover, (it is) the deep Ocean without refuge: it sweeps away the seven seas like straw.
عشق چون کشتی بود بهر خواص ** کم بود آفت بود اغلب خلاص
Love is as a ship for the elect: seldom is calamity (the result); for the most part it is deliverance.
زیرکی بفروش و حیرانی بخر ** زیرکی ظنست و حیرانی نظر
Sell intelligence and buy bewilderment: intelligence is opinion, while bewilderment is (immediate) vision.
عقل قربان کن به پیش مصطفی ** حسبی الله گو که الله‌ام کفی
Sacrifice your understanding in the presence of Mustafá (Mohammed) say, “hasbiya ‘lláh, for God sufficeth me.”
هم‌چو کنعان سر ز کشتی وا مکش ** که غرورش داد نفس زیرکش
Do not draw back your head from the ship (ark), like Kan‘án (Canaan), whom his intelligent soul deluded,
که برآیم بر سر کوه مشید ** منت نوحم چرا باید کشید1410
Saying, “I will go up to the top of the lofty mountain: why must I bear gratitude (be under an obligation) to Noah?”