believe me i wasn't always like this lacking common sense or looking insane like you i used to be clever in my days never like this totally enraptured totally gone like sharp shooters i used to be a hunter of hearts not like today with my own heart drowning in its blood nonstop asking and searching for answers that was then but now so deeply enchanted so deeply enthralled always pushing to be ahead and above since i was not yet hunted down by this ever-increasing love Translated by Nader Khalili Rumi, Fountain of Fire Cal-Earth, September 1994
"Not Like This Before" I wasn't like this before. I wasn't out of my mind and senses. Once I used to be wise like you, not crazy, insane and broken down like I am now. I wasn't the admirer of life which has no trace, no being. I used to ask, "Who is this? What is that?" and search all the time. Since you have wisdom, sit and think that probably I was like this before. I haven't changed much. I used to try to make myself better than everybody. I hadn't been hunted with the ever-growing Love before. I tried to rise above the sky with my ambition yet I didn't know I was just wandering in the desert. At the end, I have raised a treasure from the ground. Translation by Nevit O. Ergin (from Turkish translation of the Divan) Magnificent One: Selected Verses from Divan-I Kebir (Out of Print)