Who shuns the mob lives on. Beware of mixing with the throng! Just look at what it did for Ham. For all Ham's milling about the enclosure, Shem was the elect of God, the Apportioner.
A creature of seclusion, whose realm is the night, I am puny, but [unstoppable in flight] "like a boulder the flood washes down from a height." By day, I hide from others' view. Isolation is necessary, in my view. Night is when I unwrap myself, for "The rising of night is when impressions are strongest." The sun, when she rises, sentences my eyes to blindness, and I covet the sight of anything else. Against the sun's eye, I close my own, and where she is present, I make myself gone. Why should my heart placate what's subservient to my Lord? Fie on irreligious leanings toward what's transient and remiss: the sun who hauls her fire just to warm the solar disk!
[The bat went on to say (meter: mutaqārib): ]
How long you've been her prisoner! How much longer will you be?
Now, by God, the time has come to set the prisoner free.
She showers you with affection, makes her visits known to all,
but any circumspection on her part is hard to see.
If you were serious about your feelings
you would flee her when she flees,
and turn your love to Him Whose love
is glory, and rejoice.
The way of faith and purity
mends the heart and leads aright.
To make your home inside the Garden of Eternity,
God's love is where to put your eyes.
While those who work away the day will find reward tomorrow,
sleep all day rewards the wakers of the night.
From the Language of the Birds of Ibn al-Wardī
