Rumi's Masnavi - (Yet ask thyself) where are our stars—eye, ear, and mind—at night, and where (are they) when we are awake?

(Yet ask thyself) where are our stars—eye, ear, and mind—at night, and where (are they) when we are awake?

Now (they are) in good luck and union and happiness; now in ill-luck and separation and insensibility.

Since the moon of heaven is (engaged) in making this circuit, she is sometimes dark and sometimes bright.

Sometimes ’tis spring and summer, (delicious) as honey and milk; sometimes (the world is) a place of punishment by snow and piercing cold. 925

Seeing that before Him (God) universals are like a ball, subject (to Him) and prostrating themselves before His bat,

How shouldst thou, O heart, which art (but) one of these hundred thousand particulars, not be in restless movement at His decree?

Be at the disposal of the Prince, like a horse (or mule), now confined in the stable, now going (on the road).

When He fastens thee to a peg, be fastened (quiet and submissive); when He looses thee, go, be exultant (prance and bound).

(But keep on the right road, for when) the sun in heaven jumps crookedly, He causes it to be eclipsed in black disgrace, 930

Saying, “Avoid the (Dragon's) Tail: hark, take heed, lest thou become black of face like a cooking-pot.”