I have reached the limit in perfection of ugliness: thy grace has reached the limit in excellence and accomplishment.
در کمال زشتیم من منتهی ** لطف تو در فضل و در فن منتهی
Do thou grant the boon sought by this consummate one from that consummate one, O thou who art the envy of the tall cypress.
حاجت این منتهی زان منتهی ** تو بر آر ای حسرت سرو سهی
When I die, thy bounty, though it is exempt from need, will weep for kindness' sake.
چون بمیرم فضل تو خواهد گریست ** از کرم گرچه ز حاجت او بریست
It will sit beside my grave a long while: tears will gush from its gracious eye.2710
بر سر گورم بسی خواهد نشست ** خواهد از چشم لطیفش اشک جست
It will mourn for my deprivation (of beauty), it will shut its eyes to my abjectness.
نوحه خواهد کرد بر محرومیم ** چشم خواهد بست از مظلومیم
Bestow a little of those favours now, put a few of those (kind) words as a ring into my ear!
اندکی زان لطفها اکنون بکن ** حلقه‌ای در گوش من کن زان سخن
That which thou wilt say (hereafter) to my dust—strew it (now) upon my sorrowful perception!”
آنک خواهی گفت تو با خاک من ** برفشان بر مدرک غمناک من
How the mouse humbly entreated the frog, saying, “Do not think of pretexts and do not defer the fulfilment of this request of mine, for ‘there are dangers in delay,’ and ‘the Súfí is the son of the moment.’” A son (child) does not withdraw his hand from the skirt of his father, and the Súfí's kind father, who is the “moment,” does not let him be reduced to the necessity of looking to the morrow (but) keeps him all the while absorbed, unlike the common folk, in (contemplation of) the garden of his (the father's) swift (immediate) reckoning. He (the Súfí) does not wait for the future. He is of the (timeless) River, not of Time, for “with God is neither morn nor eve”: there the past and the future and time without beginning and time without end do not exist: Adam is not prior nor is Dajjál (Antichrist) posterior. (All) these terms belong to the domain of the particular (discursive) reason and the animal soul: they are not (applicable) in the non-spatial and non-temporal world. Therefore he is the son of that “moment” by which is to be understood only a denial of the division of times (into several categories), just as (the statement) “God is One” is to be understood as a denial of duality, not as (expressing) the real nature of unity.
لابه کردن موش مر چغز را کی بهانه میندیش و در نسیه مینداز انجاح این حاجت مرا کی فی التاخیر آفات و الصوفی ابن الوقت و ابن دست از دامن پدر باز ندارد و اب مشفق صوفی کی وقتست او را بنگرش به فردا محتاج نگرداند چندانش مستغرق دارد در گلزار سریع الحسابی خویش نه چون عوام منتظر مستقبل نباشد نهری باشد نه دهری کی لا صباح عند الله و لا مساء ماضی و مستقبل و ازل و ابد آنجا نباشد آدم سابق و دجال مسبوق نباشد کی این رسوم در خطه‌ی عقل جز وی است و روح حیوانی در عالم لا مکان و لا زمان این رسوم نباشد پس او ابن وقتیست کی لا یفهم منه الا نفی تفرقة الا زمنة چنانک از الله واحد فهم شود نفی دوی نی حقیقت واحدی
A certain Khwája, accustomed to scatter (pieces of) silver, said to a Súfí, “O you for whose feet my soul is a carpet,
صوفیی را گفت خواجه‌ی سیم‌پاش ** ای قدمهای ترا جانم فراش
Would you like one dirhem to-day, my king, or three dirhems at breakfast-time to-morrow?”2715
یک درم خواهی تو امروز ای شهم ** یا که فردا چاشتگاهی سه درم
He replied, “I am more pleased with (the possession of) half a dirhem yesterday than with (the promise of) this (one dirhem) to-day and a hundred dirhems to-morrow.”
گفت دی نیم درم راضی‌ترم ** زانک امروز این و فردا صد درم