Nor do I mind whether the secret be divulged or kept concealed, (1)
for how could I ever awake in harmony with outsiders?
A portion of what is within me distracts me even from myself.
Yet were a blaze of ghada-wood set alight in my heart,
it would only heighten my delight in love and my contentment.
But when the essence of my patience faded into a passing state,
I recited—as admonition—the words of the Gilani youth,
and sayings like those of Master al-Hasan, (2)
addressed to an ignorant soul pained by censure
and rebuked for what he did not grasp:
“Spare me your blame, for I do not comprehend it;
indeed, there are moments whose very existence wearies me.
Leave the strangers be—my own soul already crowds me.”

Finished.

He also said—may Allah bless him and be well-pleased with him:

O Knower exalted beyond any rival that could resemble You,
surpassing Your peers in all that You undertake;
O man of virtues, adornment of the eminent,
vanquisher of pretenders, confounder of adversaries!
Clarifying Your merit needs no further supplement,
yet detailing it is itself a worthy recompense.
O You—were I to try to count Your virtues
in verse and prose, to chant them and relate them—
I would be overwhelmed; were it not that Your noble traits refine me,
I would never secure even a single shade of their meaning.