1 بِسْمِ  الله الْرَحْمن  الْرَخيم

  has TO ka li  | de  da    re   gan    |  je  ha kim

be  SO me lā | har ra HO mā | nar ra him

  L    S   S   L   |  L     S    S     L      |  L   S     L

 L    S   S   L  |  L       S    S     L    |  L   S     L

 is  the key/opening  to the door of the treasury of the wise (the Koran)

  [the verse] "In the name of God, the most Merciful and Compassionate" **

 nā me kho dā | is   TO  ba   u   |  khat MO kon

  fā te  he  ye  |  fek  ra  to   khat   |  MO  sa khon

  L    S   S   L  |  L     S    S    L   |  L   S     L

 L    S    S   L  |  L       S    S     L    |  L   S     L

is the name of God  end on him

 the beginning of your thought and the end of speech

...several lines omitted...

 ā  khe  re  u |  ā  khe  re  bi    |   en  te  khāst

  av va le  u   |  av   va  le  bi   |  eb  te dāst

  L   S   S   L  |  L    S    S   L    |  L   S     EL

 L    S   S   L  |  L  S    S    L    |  L   S     EL

his end is an end without end

  his beginning is a beginning without beginning

** The first verse is a quote. It is the first verse of the Koran.  Although it observes rhyme, it doesn't fit into the metrical pattern of the poem. (The Koran itself has no poetic meter.) We have made an attempt to adapt it to the meter for the purpose of reading but it is not quite "correct" and for metrical purposes, this verse should be considered outside the poem.

Pattern of meter :

--> Long Short Short Long | Long Short Short  Long | Long Short Long

                                                                                 | Long Short ExtraLong

This metrical pattern  is called the "sari`".

L(ong) is a long syllable, S(hort) is a short syllable and E(xtra)L(ong) is a syllable, usually restricted to the last foot, containing a consonant cluster. A long syllable may contain a consonant + short vowel + consonant OR consonant + long vowel. A short syllable contains a consonant + short vowel.  In the older stages of the Persian language, long vowels really were pronounced with a longer duration and short vowels a little shorter, however, this distinction has been lost in the modern language. Today, only a master poetry reader can produce this effect.

Meter (وَزْن ): It is essential to first figure out the meter of a poem before attempting to understand the meaning.  This is how you can tell, among other things,  where the ezāfe's go and how you can distinguish  words whose meaning depends on a tashdid  (for example serr ("secret") and sar ("head").

    Procedure:

        First, mark off the long vowels: ā, i, u, and  long diphthongs: ay, aw (but careful if they are followed by a suffix)

        Then, mark off the short vowels: a, e, o

        When you see the pattern, deal with vowels which can be either long or short: final "he"  unpronounced "he"

                                                                                                                             word-final u/o (including the "vāv" meaning "and")

                                                                                                                              ezāfe's

        tashdid's are sometimes made use of  and sometimes ignored.

        It takes some juggling  to figure out where one syllable ends and the next begins.

        If you find you have 2 consonants, one-after-another, you need to break them up by adding a short vowel.  However,

        in the last "foot" or section of the verse, it is ok to have a consonant cluster and that syllable is called "ExtraLong"

        Every single verse of a ghazal has exactly the same pattern so once you know one for sure, you know them all! (Exception: the last "foot" can have

        several variants as we've seen in this ghazal.)

Hacking up the words of a poem to bits and pieces like this is called تَقْطيع   /taqti`/ "cutting" in Persian. In English it is called scanning. MORE!