This poem is a tête-à-tête between two married women, one of whom enjoys the love and favour of her husband, while the other has done nothing to win the love of her spouse. The second woman represents the soul who has not tried to inculcate the Lord's love within her heart and has not attended to the task of dwelling constantly on the love and virtues of her Husband, the Lord. Instead, she has played about with worldly friends and companions, indulged in the pursuit of material pleasures and clung to worldly possessions. Now she finds it hard to ascend to the Beloved's palace and win his love.

Her friend, the realized soul, in response asks her to remove her veil of ego and attachment and, discarding concern for all else, adore the Husband, contemplate on Him, think only of Him and thus win his love. Concluding the poem, Kabir hints that just as an unloved wife's adornments are futile if she has neither love nor longing for her husband, external worship and show of piety are meaningless without tree devotion for the Lord.

Day and night I kept playing
With my friends and companions,
Now I am afraid
To face my Husband.
High is the tower of my Lord's palace,
My heart trembles at every step.

Day and night I kept playing with friends,
Now I'm afraid to face my Husband.

If you long for the bliss of his love,
Then break the fetters of your reserve
And through intense love become his own.

But day and night I played with my friends,
Now I'm afraid to face my Husband.

Remove your veil;
With vibrant abandon
Efface your self
In his loving embrace;
Adore Him, entice Him
With your love-hungry eyes.

But day and night I played with my friends,
Now I'm afraid to face my Husband.

Says Kabir: Listen, my cherished friend,
Only she who has such love
Will enjoy the bliss of union.
But she who is devoid
Of longing for her Beloved,
Vain are her adornments,
Vain the collyrium she applies
To enliven her eyes.

Kabir, p. 243:11
Nis din khelat rahi