An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 101
Wine and hidden mirth — why fret at this foundationless world?
We charged the ranks of the rends, and come what may, let it come.
Unbind the knot from your heart, and dwell no more on the heavens,
for no geometer's mind ever loosed a knot like this.
Marvel not at the turning tides of the age, for the wheel
carries in memory a thousand thousand tales like ours.
Take up the cup with reverence, for its clay was kneaded
from the skulls of Jamshid and Bahman and Kubad.
Who has word of where Kavus and Kai have vanished?
Who knows how Jamshid's throne was scattered to the wind?
From longing for the sweet lip, still I see the tulip
spring blood-red from the weeping of Farhad's dust.
Perhaps the tulip too had learned the world's inconstancy —
for born and gone in a breath, it let no wine-cup fall.
Come, come, let us for a while lie ruined in the wine;
perhaps in this ruined waste we shall stumble on a treasure.
They will not grant me leave to wander far abroad —
the breeze of the Musalla, the stream of Ruknabad.
Take not the cup, like Hafez, save to the harp's lament,
for to that silken string glad hearts are bound in mirth.