Nonexistence...tonight

 

Tonight, 

take my spirit totally from my body, 

so that I may no longer have shape and name in the world!
At this moment I am drunk in Thee - give me another cup! 

Then I may be obliterated from the two worlds in Thee, and be done with it.
When I have been annihilated through Thee and be come what Thou knowest,

then I will take the cup of non- existence and drink it, cup after cup.
When the spirit becomes radiant through Thee,
when the candle lights up - if not consumed by Thee it is raw, raw.
Give me now the wine of nonexistence instant by instant; 

when I have entered nonexistence, 

I will not know the house from its roof.
When your nonexistence increases, 

the spirit will prostrate itself to you a hundred times - 

oh you to whose nonexistence thousands of existences are slave!
Give me wine, measure by measure! 

Deliver me from my own existence! 

Wine is Thy special grace, intellect Thy general grace.
Send up waves from nonexistence to steal me away!
How long will I pace the Oceans shore in fear?
The snare of my king Shams al-Din is catching prey in Tabriz, 

but I have no fear of the snare, 

for I am within it.

  Ghazal 1716
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983