An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 128
There is no idol in the city to steal away our heart;
if fortune turn my friend, it will carry my baggage hence.
Where is a wine-flushed comrade, at whose open-handedness
the heart-scorched lover might carry off the name of longing?
O gardener, I see you heedless of the autumn's coming;
alas for the day when the wind bears off your graceful rose.
The highwayman of time has not slept — be not secure of him;
if he has not robbed today, tomorrow he will rob.
In fancy, out of longing, I toy with all these playthings,
that some discerning eye might carry off the name of the show.
The learning and the skill my heart amassed in forty years —
I fear that drunken narcissus will plunder them away.
What echo does a calf's dull lowing give? Buy not the trick;
who is Samiri, that he steal the light from Moses' shining hand?
The enamelled cup of wine bars the road to a straitened heart;
let it not fall from your grasp, lest grief's flood sweep you off.
Though the road of love is the ambush-place of the archers,
whoever walks it with knowledge carries the day from the foe.
Hafez, if the beloved's drunken glance demands your soul,
clear the house of the stranger, and let it be borne away.