A bird flew from its nest and ranged about the garden; its soft breast was pierced by a rose-thorn.

It reviled the nature of Time’s garden; it throbbed with its own pain and pain of others.

It thought the tulip was branded with the blood of innocents; in the closed bud it saw the guile of spring.

It asked if in this world, with its foundation wrongly laid, there was a single morning into which Time had not built an evening;

And it wept so much that song turned to blood in its throat and dripped as tears from its eyes.

From the cries of burning woe a hoopoe’s heart caught fire. The hoopoe with his beak drew forth the thorn from its body.

Saying, ‘Get the profit out of loss: The rose has created pure gold by rending her breast.

If thou art wounded, make the pain thy remedy. Accustom thyself to thorns that thou mayst become entirely one with the garden.