An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 149
My heart will take no path but love of the moon-faced ones alone;
from every door I offer counsel, yet it takes no hold at all.
For God's sake, O adviser, speak the tale of goblet and of wine,
for no fairer image than this one ever settles in our thought.
Come, O rose-cheeked cupbearer, and bring the wine of glowing hue,
for no thought sinks deeper into us, and none takes better hold.
I drink the flask in secret, and the people take it for a book;
what marvel if the fire of such deceit should catch and burn the book!
This patched and tattered dervish-cloak I mean to burn one day,
the one the Elder of the wine-sellers won't take even for a cup.
This is why the friends find joy so pure in her ruby-coloured wine:
that in that jewel no image takes but the pure image of the truth.
Such an alluring face and eye — and you say, 'Sew your eye up tight'? —
begone, for this empty sermon takes no lodging in my head.
The one who counsels the rends — he who wars against the writ of fate —
I find his heart so cramped and closed: perhaps he lifts no cup.
In the midst of weeping I laugh aloud, for, like the candle in this hall,
a tongue of fire is mine indeed — and yet it takes no hold.
How gracefully you snared my heart! I glory in your drunken eye,
for no one ever caught the wild birds fairer than you did.
The talk is of our neediness against the loved one's self-content;
what use is sorcery, O heart, that takes no hold upon the heart-thief?
I'll bring that mirror one day into my grasp, like Alexander of old,
whether or not this fire catches for a while and burns and takes.
For God's sake, some mercy, O rich lord! — for the dervish at your street's head
knows of no other doorway now, and takes to no other road.
At this fresh and honeyed verse, I marvel at the king of kings —
that he does not take Hafez, head to foot, and clothe him whole in gold.