1. Our sorrows turned to joy upon seeing you,
And our time became a goblet with you as its wine.

2. O masters, remembering whom brings us comfort,
Souls yearn for you forever.

3. Being with you is their bliss and relief.
Your existence illuminates this whole universe,

4. And all in the cosmos are your lovers.
That is not how it is, my masters.

5. The hearts of those loyal to you long for you,
And find relief in your sweet company.

6. Who knows you? Who recognizes you?
You are the truth of all that's described.

7. Passion prevails! Where is the helpful ally?
Have mercy on the lovers.

8. Veil their love and passion, which brought disgrace.
A people of purity, their water unmingled,

9. Inclining to none but you.
They concealed you until their innermost being denied you.

10. If they confide their secret, their blood is fair game.
Thus the blood of those who confess is fair game.

11. The fragrance of reunion wafts from them.
As for the others, they are contemptible nobodies.

12. A people of noble, perplexing spiritual states.
When they become distracted, they conceal it.

13. Tears flow from the slanderers about them.
Those who understand extol their attributes,

14. They are the remedy to evil and balm.
All knowledge and sciences are with them.

15. And they have clear proofs for the sick.
In them lies explication of their perplexing affair.

16. My masters, I bid you peace.
For I am prostrate before you,

17. Cast out far from all but you.
I lower my wing to you, not over you.

18. For the ardently devoted lover to lower his wing brings joy.
Your beauty inhabits every heart,

19. Our flowers bloom from your breeze's fragrance.
Can the anguished one find relief in your abandonment?

20. His soul finds rest in your company,
His eyes aspire to your approval.

21. The turbidity of tribulations has lifted from the eye of sincerity.
And the beauty of my beloved appeared after the concealment.

22. So by the right of that pact, O people of loyalty,
Return the light of union from the darkness of estrangement.

23. For estrangement is night, and reunion, dawn.
Their assemblage delighted in its hospitality.

24. And their beloved made lawful their union.
Sufis who reveal their spiritual visions.

25. When they became pure, their hearts purified for Him.
So the niche and the lamp blaze in His light.

26. O our people! I have an excess of passion for you,
And patience has left me in my love of you.

27. So delight in what you have attained through your sobriety
And enjoy yourselves, for the time is sweet in your company.

28. The drink was tasty and the cups pleasant.
A darkness has risen in my heart with passion

29. For the prince of beauty with no ignorance in him.
Behold my love for the majesty of his perfection!

30. O companion, the lover cannot be blamed
If the gleam of reunion’s horizon appeared.

31. Gently, O people spellbound with that passion!
The anguished one has not twisted away from your love.

32. By God, the besotted one complains of pining,
The lovers have no fault if passion prevails.

33. They concealed it, so love grew and they confessed.
That Salma whom - alas! - her determination has undone,

34. Wounding with her glances and the arrows of her eyelash.
God requite the company who didn’t stint

35. To ransom her with their own souls when they saw
That magnanimity brings relief.

36. They drank from cups of the beloved’s coffee of passion
And all hated things became desires to them.

37. The sublime essence sought them earnestly
And the caller of truths summoned them.

38. So they came, feeling intimate and at peace.
They are masters. With their voluntary humility -

39. With love, the landscapes of their being grow luminous.
When anguish at separation increasingly consumed them,

40. They embarked on ships of dreadful seas as their tears
Became an ocean and the intensity of fear, their sailor.

41. They removed their clothes and He replaced them.
He guided them to rectitude from error.

42. He who honors them by raising the veil.
By God! They did not stand at His door

43. Until they were called and received the key.
If He distances or draws them nearer in His grace,

44. They complain as they complain of the excess of their lament.
They who have tasted the delight of His affection

45. Are not delighted but by the mention of their Beloved.
Eternally - their every era is joy.

46. In them circulated the goblets of His quenching drink,
Until through it their sober minds were lost,

47. And when their Beloved appeared in their attributes,
They attended while witnesses of their essence disappeared.

48. So they were exposed when they saw Him and cried aloud:
The light of divine manifestation confused their intellects

49. For its branches were more inward and its root more manifest.
A people, all merit attributable to them.

50. So resemble them if you are not already like them,
For to emulate the noble ones brings success.

51. The garden branches were intoxicated from its breezes
And its birds trilled out their songs.

52. The Essence manifested in the wonders of Its attributes.
Arise, my boon companion, to the wine and bring it

53. In cups which the toasts have circled.
I recognized its people in preserving faithfulness,

54. And perfection of mystical knowledge and lofty rank,
An excellent, long-aged wine, and the best bottle,

55. From the bounty of honor and approaching religion.
No wine soiled by the peasant’s feet!