Although wine be prohibited, drink it without ceasing, drink it in the evening and in the morning, drink it to the noise of songs and to the sound of the harp. When you can, procure that which sparkles like the ruby, throw a drop on the earth and drink all the rest. 248. Diversity of creed divides the human race into about seventy-two sects. Amongst all these dogmas, I have chosen that of Thy love. What signify these words: Impiety, Islamism, creed, sin? My true aim is to seek Thee. Far be from me all these vain, indifferent pretexts. 249. Enumerate my good qualities one by one; my faults, pass by in tens. Pardon each sin committed for the love of God. Fan not the fire of hatred by the breath of passion, pardon, rather, in memory of the tomb of the Prophet of God [Mohammed]. 250. In truth, wine is a limpid spirit in the cup; in the body of the flask, it is a transparent soul. No annoying person is worthy of my society. It is only the cup of wine which can figure there, for that is at once a solid and a diaphanous body. 251. O Wheel of Heaven! Thou art complete in Thy ingratitude. Thou keepest me constantly bare [naked] like a fish. The weaver's loom weaves clothes for human beings; more charitable is it than Thou, O Wheel of Heaven! 252. O Khayyam! Time is ashamed of him who allows his heart to be saddened by vicissitudes below; drink, then, to the sound of the harp, drink some wine from the crystal, before the crystal broken be upon a stone. 253. If the rose is not our portion, do not the thorns remain? If light divine does not reach us, is there not the fire [of hell]? If we have not the clerical mantle, or that of the temple, or the pontifical, do not the bells, the church, and the ephod remain to us? 254. If the Wheel of Heaven refuses me peace, am I not ready for war? If I have not an honorable reputation, have I not shame for myself? Here is the cup full of wine the color of rubies; he who will not drink of it, has he not his head and a stone? 255. See Dawn appears. Already has it rent the veil of night. Arise, then, and empty the morning cup. Why this sadness? Drink, O my heart! drink, for these dawns will succeed each other with face turned towards us, when we shall have ours turned towards the earth. 256. All that this world contains are but images and flourishes of fiction. Ill-advised is he who does not comprehend his place in the number of these images. Repose, thou, friend, drink a cup of wine, give thyself up to joy and thus be delivered from all these vain figures, from these impossible reflections [which come to assail thy mind]. 257.