Love Is Like A Tree And Lovers Are The Shade Of That Tree

The intellectual is all the time engaged in showing off;
the lover is all the time becoming unselfed and distraught.
Intellectuals are running away, afraid of drowning;
the whole business and trade of lovers is drowning in the sea.
Intellectuals find repose by contriving repose;
lovers think it a shame to be attached to repose.
The lover will be in a circle, alone from everyone,
just as oil and water, though in the same place, are separate.
The man who goes to the trouble of offering advice to lovers
gets nothing for his pains but to be a mockery of passion.
Love has the scent of musk, it is therefore notorious;
how can musk escape from such notoriety?
Love is like a tree, and lovers are the shade of that tree;
though the shade fall afar, yet it must attend the tree.
For the station of intellect a child must become an old man;
in the station of love you see an old man become youthful.
Shams-i Tabrizi, whoever has chosen to be lowly in love for you,
thereby rises to heights sublime as your love.

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