Bad Habit

I have a bad habit; I am weary; pray excuse me.
How shall my habit become seemly without your fair face, my beauty?
Without you I am like winter, people are tormented because of me;
with you I am as a rosebower, my habit is the habit of spring.
Without you I lack reason, I am weary, everything I say is crooked,
 I am ashamed of reason and reason is shamefast at the light of your face.
What is the remedy for bad water? To return to the river.
What is the remedy for bad habits? To see the beloved’s face again.
I see the water of the soul imprisoned in this whirlpool of the body;
 I dig out the earth to make a way to the sea.
You have a potion which you give the despairing,
secretly, lest the hopeful, grieving for it, should utter lamentation.
O heart, so much as you are able do not withhold your eye from the Beloved,
whether He withdraws from you or draws you into His bosom.

 Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi (Mystical poems of Rumi- A.J. Arberry)