An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 115
Plant the tree of friendship, that it bear the heart's desire;
uproot the sapling of enmity, that breeds unnumbered pain.
As guest of the tavern, keep honour among the rends,
for the headache of the night, my soul, is the price of the morning's hangover.
Count the night of good company a spoil; for after our day
the wheel will turn on and on, and bring long trains of nights and dawns.
O litter-bearer of Layla, whose canopy the moon obeys,
for God's sake, move her heart to make her passage by Majnun.
Long for the springtime of your life, O heart, or else this garden
yields a hundred blooms like the wild rose, a thousand songs like the nightingale.
For God's sake, since my wounded heart has sworn a pact with your tress,
command your honeyed ruby lip to bring it swiftly to rest.
In this garden Hafez, grey with age, will ask of God once more:
to sit at a streamside, and gather a cypress into his arms.