Thou hast put in us an irresistible passion [which is equivalent to an order from Thee], and, on the other hand, forbiddest us to give way to it. Poor human beings are in extreme embarrassment between this order and this prohibition, for it is as if Thou commandest me to upset the cup but refrain from spilling the contents. 227. They are gone, these transients, and no one of them has returned to tell the secrets concealed behind the curtain. O devotee! it is by humility that spiritual affairs take favorable turn and not by prayer, for, what is prayer without sincerity and humility? 228. Throw dust upon the vault of heaven and drink some wine; seek out the fair, for where see you a subject for pardon, a subject for prayer, since, of all those who have gone away, no one has returned? 229. Although on my necklace of duty I have never strung the pearl of submission, as is Thy due, although never in my heart have I swept the dust from Thy steps, I have never despaired reaching the sill of Thy throne of pity, for never have I importuned Thee with my troubles. 230. Let us recommence the course of our pleasures and say the _tekbir_ [farewell] to the five prayers. Everywhere, where the flask is present, you will see, like the neck of the flask itself, our necks stretching out towards the cup. 231. Here below, we are only the puppets with which the Wheel of Heaven is amused. This is a truth and not a metaphor. We are in fact the playthings upon this human checkerboard, which finally we leave to enter one by one the coffin of annihilation. 232. You ask me what is this phantasmagoria of things here below. To tell you the whole truth regarding it would be too long: it is a fantastic image which comes out of a vast sea, and which re-enters, later, the same vast sea. 233. To-day we are lost in love, we are in deep distress, and finally inebriate, within the temple of our idols render to the cult of wine its due. To-day, entirely separate from our being, we shall have attained the step of the eternal throne. 234. My well-beloved [would that her life might last as long as my sorrows!] has commenced to be amiable to me again. She cast in my eyes a sweet and furtive look and disappeared, saying without doubt to herself: Do good and cast it on the waters. 235. Here is the Dawn! Rise Thou, O Source of all Delight! Drink sweetly of the wine and let us listen to the harmonies of the harp, for the life of those who sleep will not be long, and of those who are no more, not one will e'er return. 236.