An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 173
Amid my prayer the arching of your brow came to my mind;
such a rapture seized me that the prayer-niche itself cried out.
Look now for no more patience, heart, or wit to dwell in me,
for all that self-command you witnessed has been scattered to the wind.
The wine is clarified, the meadow's birds are drunk with song;
this is the season of love, and the work is founded firm at last.
I catch the scent of mending in the whole estate of the world;
the rose has brought its gladness, and the dawn wind comes rejoicing.
O bride of art, complain no more against your fortune's turn;
adorn the bridal-bower of beauty, for the bridegroom now has come.
The heart-alluring sugar-forms have all put on their finery;
yet it is our own belov'd who comes, with beauty God-bestowed.
The trees that bear the weight of fruit are trees of attachment bound;
how blessed the cypress, that stands free of the whole burden of grief.
Minstrel, from the words of Hafez sing a ghazal fine and rare,
that I may say the memory of joy's old hour is come to me again.