XVII: Since the heart is torn from it, in…

Since the heart is torn from it, in the end, in anguish and woe,
Why do people set their hearts this fleeting world upon?

From this garden's roses, constancy's fragrance emanateth not:
Most unjustly do the nightingales hazard their hearts upon them.

Since the thought of the curls of the beloved is dishevelled and deranged,
Let my heart be disordered for ever! let it never be composed!

So hard, so pitiless, and so regardless, as is that heart of thine,
There will be none other like it, the whole universe within!

Wherever its ravisher may be, there will the heart be also;
For when do the heart-ravishers in their breasts retain their hearts?

Why hast Thou, O God! my heart filled with a giddy fair one's love?
That, though guiltless of any fault, every moment the heart afflicteth.

Proximity and remoteness--conjunction and separation--will be all one to him,
Whose heart hath a place acquired in immateriality's abode.

The flames of Hell I accept, with all my heart, a hundred times over;
But God forbid that in separation's fire the heart be consumed!

Eat! drink wine! raise the song! do all, Aeabd-ul-Kadir!
But this one thing--do not thou the heart of the Muslim afflict!