Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

That s its custom, the World: to vex and disturb us -

but whatever you do don t try to hit back!

It ll never leave off its swordplay, but the best

you can do is to make a shield of your intellect.

I see you wear the amulet of loyalty

to the world around your neck - take it off

quick, or your master will surely strangle you.

The generous man, accustomed to doing good

to people of faith and virtue, shins the mob

as if they were dogs, as if they were briny desert

where no wise farmer would think to sow a crop

or hope to fertilise it with irrigation.

Companionship with fools is but a thorn

to prick out the eye of faith and manliness -

don t give your heart to the world; no free

or noble man would sell himself to a tramp.

Never feel secure from the vicissitudes of Time

that serpent which devours even the elements;

if one day you manage to escape her tricks

tomorrow she ll back with something worse.

Mankind sees little mercy from this world

however much he begs and weeps and laments.

Look how she paints her face, the whore,

the husband-murderer, the witch who hides

away in her closet mixing poison with

his glass of wine - but worse, her lover, who takes

a cup of arsenic from this drab and thinks

it honey - how can he be reckoned a man

who falls in a woman s deceitful snare? Wisdom

is a magic potency bought with piety

and faith, which pours down its rain from the cloud

of language on the field of the intelligence.

He who makes Wisdom his master will see as clear

as day the banal machinations of

his foe, the World which mixes honey with gall -

he who has Wisdom in his head will never

dare to bed down with a demon of Hell !