Escape

Once again, once again I have escaped from my chains, I have burst out of these bonds and this trap which seizes the infirm.
Heaven, the bent old man full of wizardry and deceit by virtue of your youthful fortune I have escaped from this old man.
Night and day I ran, I broke away from night and day; ask of this sphere how like an arrow I sped.
Why should I fear sorrow? For I am the comrade of death. Why should I fear the general? For I have escaped from the prince.
Reason bore me down with anxiety for forty years; sixty-two has made me quarry, and I have escaped from devising.
All creatures have been made deaf or blind by predestination; I have escaped from the attack and retreat of predestination, and from predestination.
Outwardly skin, inwardly stone, the fruit is a prisoner; like a fig, I have escaped from that skin and that stone.
Delay causes mischief, and haste is of the devil; my heart has escaped from haste, and I have escaped from delay.
In the first place blood was the food, in the end blood became milk; when the teeth of reason sprouted, I escaped from that milk;
I ran after bread, a loaf or two, by imposture; God gave me a food, so that I escaped from imposture.
Be silent, be silent, speak no more in detail; I will speak of the interpretation, I have escaped from the stench of garlic.

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