Our Arab in a boat was placed at river’s side; The stream he saw, admired, bowed low, lost all his pride; Exclaiming: “Wondrous goodness of the sovereign will! Th’ acceptance of my water-pot more wondrous still! How could that sea of wealth my drop deign to accept, And largely thus to recompense the trifle kept?” 620 Know now, my friend, this world’s one mighty water-pot, With wisdom and with beauty teeming; as all wot. One drop, however, ’tis, from ocean of His grace, Whose fulness cannot be confined in any place. That treasure latent was. Through fulness it burst forth, More glorious than the heavens became thenceforth the earth. The latent treasure, pouring out its riches great, The earth made kinglike, clothed with more than regal state. One little branch canal from th’ ocean of God’s grace, Thus overwhelms this mighty water-pot of space. 625 They who see God are ever rapt in ecstasy; And raptured, hold that water-pot mere fallacy. O thou! envy of whom is to that pot a stone! Though fractured by the shock, the pot yields sounder tone. The pot is cracked; but, still, its water is not spilt; The crack’s the very source through which it’s sounder built. The jar’s each single particle’s in dance and revery, Though unto man’s poor wisdom this seems foolery. The pot, the world, all it contains, are lost to view. Consider well this fact! God knows it’s simply true. 630 If thou canst grasp this meaning, thou’rt like falcon strong. Beat, then, the pinions of thy thoughts. Be hawk, ere long. Thought’s pinions are bemired in thee, and heavy move; Because thou feedest on clay; clay’s bread to thee, I’ll prove. As flesh, bread is but clay. Trust not thereon for strength; Or thou’lt remain, claylike, within the earth at length. Dost hunger? What art thou, then, but a dog? Fierce, ill-affected, raging; lusts thy vitals clog! And when with food thou’rt filled, polluted straight becomest. Thou losest strength and sense; mere stock, thou sleep welcomest. 635 So, being doglike or a stock, senseless, impure, How canst thou progress make in path of virtue, sure? Whatever ’tis thou huntest, dog thou art, in sooth. Feed not, then, thus, the dog of lust’s voracious tooth. When dogs are satisfied, obedience they forswear; To follow up the game they one and all forbear. His want it was disposed the Arab of our tale, To travel till he’d reached the Caliph’s courtly vale. We’ve shown the bounty of that sovereign merciful, Shed on the Arab’s wretchedness, most plentiful. 640