When you see the face of anger
look behind it
and you will see the face of pride.
Bring anger and pride
under your feet, turn them into a ladder
and climb higher.
There is no peace until you become
their master.
Let go of anger, it may taste sweet
but it kills.
Don’t become its victim
you need humility to climb to freedom.
– Ghazal (Ode) 2197
Translated by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
Rumi: Hidden Music
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
Here is the actual poem in Farsi:
http://ganjoor.net/moulavi/shams/ghazalsh/sh2198/
The translation is very nice in English but unfortunately in translating only selected lines, leaves out some of the theological references embedded in the poem.
It is an important insight of Mawlana’s that anger comes from pride (jumla ye khashm az kibr khizad). How different is it this anger from that “holy anger” which comes from not pride but truthfulness (sidq).