and in shame seeketh glory. To merit the madness of love, man must abound
in sanity; to merit the bonds of the Friend, he must be full of spirit.
Blessed the neck that is caught in His noose, happy the head that falleth
on the dust in the pathway of His love. Wherefore, O friend, give up thy
self that thou mayest find the Peerless One, pass by this mortal earth
that thou mayest seek a home in the nest of heaven. Be as naught, if thou
wouldst kindle the fire of being and be fit for the pathway of love.

Love seizeth not upon a living soul,
The falcon preyeth not on a dead mouse.(16)

Love setteth a world aflame at every turn, and he wasteth every land where
he carrieth his banner. Being hath no existence in his kingdom; the wise
wield no command within his realm. The leviathan of love swalloweth the
master of reason and destroyeth the lord of knowledge. He drinketh the
seven seas, but his heart’s thirst is still unquenched, and he saith, “Is
there yet any more?”(17) He shunneth himself and draweth away from all on
earth.

Love’s a stranger to earth and heaven too;
In him are lunacies seventy-and-two.(18)

He hath bound a myriad victims in his fetters, wounded a myriad wise men
with his arrow. Know that every redness in the world is from his anger,
and every paleness in men’s cheeks is from his poison. He yieldeth no
remedy but death, he walketh not save in the valley of the shadow; yet
sweeter than honey is his venom on the lover’s lips, and fairer his
destruction in the seeker’s eyes than a hundred thousand lives.

Wherefore must the veils of the satanic self be burned away at the fire of