Oh friend, if you are a lover, be like a candle: Melt all night long, burn joyfully till morning !...by Rumi

In truth, Love for the Illuminator of hearts 
Keeps Lovers awake all night without food and sleep.

Oh friend, if you are a lover, be like a candle:
Melt all night long, burn joyfully till morning !

He who is like cold weather in autumn is no Lover
In autumn's midst the lover's heart is burning summer.

Dear friend, if you have a love you want to proclaim,
then shout like a lover! Shout! Shout!

But if you are chained by sensuality, make no claims to Love
enter the spiritual retreat and burn away your chains!

Oh simple man, how can a lover be joined to sensuality?
How could Love eat from the same trough as his ass?

If you want to catch the fragrance of these symbols,
then turn your eyes away from everything but Beloved !

But if you cannot see that he is greater than the two worlds,
you are still a wretch drowned in the ocean of heedlessness.

So go before the teachers of conventional knowledge
busy yourself with jurisprudence
and become a master of the science of
"This is permitted and that is forbidden."

My spirit has passed beyond childhood in love for Beloved
Love for him is not mixed with raisins and nuts.

My intellect has left me and my verses are incomplete
that is why my bow has no more designs and wrappings.

Oh Dear, sleep and abandon speech!
No leopard will ever catch that lion!

~ Rumi
Ghazal (Ode) 1196
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983

Art by Larry Butterworth