M1:1577 — والله ار زین خار در بستان شوم / همچو بلبل زین سبب نالان شوم

This couplet is the climax of a paradoxical meditation on divine love. The speaker, a mystic lover, has just confessed to being in love with both God's severity (qahr) and His kindness (luṭf). He even fears that his cries of pain might be taken at face value, causing a compassionate God to lessen the very harshness he has come to cherish (M1:1575).

Here, that paradox is pushed to its extreme. The nightingale (bulbul) is the archetypal lover in Persian poetry, famous for its lamenting song for its beloved, the rose (gul). Conventionally, the nightingale laments because it is separated from the rose by thorns. Rumi inverts this entire tradition. His lover declares that if God were to remove him from the 'thorn' of affliction and place him in the 'garden' of ease, that would be the cause for his lament. The source of conventional suffering (the thorn) has become the site of intimate connection with the Beloved; its removal would feel like a true separation.

The following verses deepen this image, calling this lover a strange 'nightingale' who opens its beak to devour the thorn along with the rose garden (M1:1578), ultimately revealing him as a 'fiery sea-monster' for whom all unpleasantness becomes pleasant through love (M1:1579). The 'thorn' is no longer an obstacle to the Beloved, but a manifestation of the Beloved's attention, and is therefore loved for its own sake.