The following verses are from the Intimate Conversations of Khwajah Abdullah Ansari. For more about him and this work, see this previous post.

O God,
When I look upon you,
I see myself a king among kings,
A crown upon my head.
When I look upon myself,
I see myself among the humble,
Dust on my head.*

O God,
I have wasted my life
And done injustice to my body.

O God,
In our head we have intoxication by you,
In our heart we have your mysteries,
On our tongue we have your poetry.

O God,
If we speak, we speak praise of you.
If we seek, we seek your pleasure.

O God,
Of this world and the next I have chosen to love you:
I have put on coarse garments
And I have forsaken my well-being.

O God,
Everyone is a pauper in what he has not;
But I, in what I have.

*’To pour dust upon one’s head’ is a Persian expression, indicating abject grief–that one is lower than the earth.

Translation Wheeler M. Thackston