1. If my being is like lightning in its transience
Then tell me, who here will last and remain?

2. None remains except Allah alone
So why do my people name me as creation?

3. I am renewed from an ancient matter though I am
The imagined occurrence, the discarded phantom

4. My mind and soul have stages of existence
While my self and body accompany composition and separation

5. I am the sun in the attribute of perfection, and whatever is other
Is but a shadow, so be assured I precede it

6. And if you want me, then know all my stages
And leave from me the west, and face the east

7. The spirits continue to ascend by my ambition
And the mystery of my unseen realm continues rising through me

8. For us is the blessed proximity, to the right of the sanctuary
And in the thickets of the heights, for us is the immersed pearl

9. It is the essence without dhaal, or alif, or cause
So the letters do not know a way up to it

10. Its compositions and declarations require rupture and ascent
And have fallen short of it

11. It is the name, the brand, the symbol for creation
So whichever way I turn my face, I witness it

12. It is the Highest Refuge, it is the Level
To whom the claim is due, it is the firmest handhold

13. It is beauty of face, it is perfection of truth
No wonder that people melted in love for it

14. When it hides we perish, when it appears we live
And if it is excessive in separation, we say to it "be gentle"

15. My heart raves for it when the morning breeze blows
And grows intoxicated with longing whenever the leaves rustle

16. A Hejazi, a Damascene, one of noble countenance
She who beholds it is not misguided nor wretched

17. We prostrated to it while it bowed to us
With the inclination of an ardent, devoted, loving bow

18. There is no love but love of it for a lover
For it, his lies in other than it have always been truth

19. Existence established its degrees of essence
Flowing with decree through its names

20. It transcends all those degrees
So destruction to a servant who does not know it as destruction