a painful night-journey and a dark, arduous trek.

Then the fruits of worldly life and its pleasures drew near

the fleeting enjoyment of delusion, and things of its ilk.

And I trifled as much as youth and its charms desired

until my whims drove me into a frenzied madness.

I thought that for one departing, there is no life after

no resurrection, and no recompense to be found there.

I accompanied life as pleasures overflowing with sweetness

unmarred by anxieties or by calamities.

Favors followed by others in their wake

no sweetness passed but another sweetness arrived.

Darkness upon darkness, blindness and straying

such was my state; no guidance was there, no light.

I bent over the lusts of a world whose taste is sweet

while the inner essence of what I tasted was disease.

Yet, by the Truth, amidst the intoxication of desires

how often did a call ring in my mind, then fade away.

It was as if a soul, distracted by passion and reckless

yearned back for its original, sacred abodes.