1. You exist if you are absent, and if you are present, you are a veil
And so are all creatures, high and low

2. He clothes Himself in them
Each relatively, but He in His Essence is Majestic

3. Absolute One, free from limitation, rather from
The limitation of His absoluteness, intimacy appears

4. He is in the Abode of Might and Majesty
You will find no door to Him other than yourself

5. Stand at His door through Him and with courtesy
With humility and kiss the threshold

6. Be without your self, the veils are lifted from Him
And He shows you what I saw in creation

7. His Face is the Light manifest in you but
He has placed upon you from Him a veil eternally

8. My friend, take the wine from me
For I have turned this drink

9. And spread out the carpet in the abode of my people
And filled the cups and jars

10. And swept the churches free of what
Darkness was in them, so pure whiteness answered

11. And branches returned to their roots
The hand of annihilation made them perfectly inverted

12. So my existence is the real existence
And the images in it were but dye

13. My knowledge is the knowledge of certainty that I
Was Sa'di and Zainab and Rabab

14. I was Layla, and Majnun was Layla's
And the lovers before and the beloved

15. And I am now all that passes away
And I will appear as loved ones and companions

16. Like the chameleon changes its color
Every color it displays, banners

17. Yet its essence remains unchanged, and so the names
Everything in existence pronounces letters

18. Sublime, confounding intellects
Say, if you search for it, even the slate

19. In relativity, named it the book
And it is an eye that sees and perceives

20. It manifested all other than it, the eyelids and lashes
A sun whose rays are named

21. Heavens, and all were but clouds over it
It is revealed in us, so we appear from it

22. Like mirages appear from places
But the ignorant, not knowing the realities

23. Thinks the honey is toxic
And existence to be two parts, this

24. Is his mistake, not truth
And the hidden association increases for him

25. Whenever he distinguishes the wine from the cups
The metaphoric from the real speech

26. And you see in their meanings strangeness
But the ignorant denier is foolish

27. And the lover of equity hides himself
And he who understands matters, you will find him

28. Gathering separateness, disobeying, obedient
This is the creed through which Allah is close

29. To the people of perfection and the poles
None are guided to it but those

30. Who fell as stars upon the ignorant as flames
Preserving what vacillates of the covenants of mystic unity

31. In witnessing existence and propriety
Upon him be peace, his heart never inclined

32. Toward his beloved, and passion increased
And through Sa'di he saw torment as bliss

33. When it came upon him, and bliss as torment