What makes the Sufi ?...by Rumi

What makes the Sufi ?
Purity of heart;

Not the patched mantle and the lust perverse
Of those vile earth-bound men who steal his name.

He in all dregs discerns the essence pure:
In hardship ease, in tribulation joy.

The phantom sentries, who with batons drawn
Guard Beauty's palace-gate and curtained bower,

Give way before him, unafraid he passes,
And showing the King's arrow, enters in.

~ Rumi
Translated by R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems' an Anthology of verse
translations edited by A.J.Arberry,
Everyman's Library, 1972