When you are in the company of a beauty with cypress-like figure and a color fresher than the newly-culled rose, put not far from thee the flowers of the field, nor let the cup escape from thy hand; [do this] before the north-wind of death, like a gale which disperses the leaves of the roses, tears in tatters the envelope of thy being. 258. How long these cries, these groans against the things of this world? Rise, rather, and pass gaily every instant. When the universe shall be re-dressed in green from end to end, drink wine in a ruby cup, full to the brim. 259. Give not vain thoughts free access to thy mind. Drink wine throughout the year, and always cups filled to the brim. Pursue the daughter of the vine and aye rejoice, for it is better to enjoy the daughter without leave of law than know the mother with her full consent. 260. My love is at the apogee of its flame. The beauty of the one who captivates my soul [the Divinity] is complete. My heart speaks, but my tongue remains mute, refusing to express my sentiments. Great God! Has one ever seen aught more strange? I am devoured by thirst, and before me flows a fresh and limpid draught! 261. Take a cup of wine in thy hand, then mingle thy voice with that of the nightingale, for, if it were meet to drink this juice of the vine without accompaniment of harmonious sound, the wine itself would make no noise in slipping out of the flask. 262. Guard thyself from ever despairing for a crime committed, and be mindful of the clemency of thy Creator, the pity of the Master; for, should'st thou die to-day, in a state of complete drunkenness, to-morrow he would pardon thy decaying dust for all. 263. O Wheel of Heaven, thy circular course does not satisfy me. Deliver me from it, for I am unworthy of thy chain. If thy good pleasure consists in according thy favors only to the poor in mind, to idiots, I am neither intelligent enough or wise enough [to be confounded by it]. 264. O _mufti_ [grand judge] of the city! I am more a worker than art thou. Drunk as I am, I own more intelligence than thou; for thou, thou drinkest the blood of human beings and I that of the vine. Be just and tell me which is the more sanguinary of the two? 265. That which is wisest is to seek joy in our hearts in a cup of wine; and not preoccupy ourselves too much with the present or the past; and, finally, were it only for an instant, to free from the shackles of reason that soul which has been loaned us and which groans in its prison. 266.