As a quiet little seedling
    Lay within its darksome bed,
To itself it fell a-talking,
    And this is what it said:

“I am not so very robust,
    But I’ll do the best I can;”
And the seedling from that moment
    Its work of life began.

So it pushed a little leaflet
    Up into the light of day,
To examine the surroundings
    And show the rest the way.

The leaflet liked the prospect,
    So it called its brother, Stem;
Then two other leaflets heard it,
    And quickly followed them.

To be sure, the haste and hurry
    Made the seedling sweat and pant;
But almost before it knew it
    It found itself a plant.

The sunshine poured upon it,
    And the clouds they gave a shower;
And the little plant kept growing
    Till it found itself a flower.

Little folks, be like the seedling,
    Always do the best you can;
Every child must share life’s labor
    Just as well as every man.

And the sun and showers will help you
    Through the lonesome, struggling hours,
Till you raise to light and beauty
    Virtue’s fair, unfading flowers.

Before you came,
things were as they should be:
the sky was the dead-end of sight,
the road was just a road, wine merely wine.

Now everything is like my heart,
a color at the edge of blood:
the grey of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,
the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the coal of dead fires.

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt wet with tears,
the road a vein about to break,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the world keep changing.

Don’t leave now that you’re here—
Stay. So the world may become like itself again:
so the sky may be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

^{translated from the Farsi by Haleh Liza Gafori}

Let Love,
the water of life, 
flow through our veins.

Let a Love-drunk mirror 
steeped in the wine of dawn 
translate night. 

You who pour the wine, 

put the cup of oneness in my hand     
and let me drink from it 
until I can’t imagine separation.

Love, you are the archer.
My mind is your prey. 
Carry my heart
and make my existence your bull’s-eye.

Seventeen years ago you said
    Something that sounded like Good-bye;
    And everybody thinks that you are dead,
                        But I.

     So I, as I grow stiff and cold
To this and that say Good-bye too;
    And everybody sees that I am old
                        But you.

     And one fine morning in a sunny lane
Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear 
    That nobody can love their way again
                        While over there
You will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair.

The dawn has no tint of rose, 
   Or scent of violet,
And noon brings no sweet repose 
   To grapple with regret.

                      •

Who has taken the stars, 
   Which gave a bashful light,
Between the age-worn scars 
   Of the eternal night?

                      •

I am a humming sea shell, 
   You are a boundless sea,
Your lovely lyric waters 
   Flow on and under me.

                      •

Today is the day of love, 
   Tomorrow may not be, 
So live our lives as we may
   And trust eternity.

                      •

Give me your stars to hold 
   O sky of blue delight, 
Your moon of laughter gold
   To diadem my night.