An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 185
Will it ever be that they assay these coins for their true worth,
that all the keepers of the cloister set about some worthy work?
My best considered counsel is that the friends should, one and all,
let go of every task, and grasp the curling of the Friend's dark tress.
Well have the comrades taken hold of the tress-tip of the cupbearer;
if only the wheel of heaven would let them find a moment's rest!
Sell not the strength of abstinence's arm to the fair-faced ones,
for in this troop they storm a fortress with a single mounted rider.
O Lord, how bold for bloodshed are these young Turk-hearted ones,
who with the arrow of the eyelash take a quarry every hour!
To dance to fresh-wrought verse and the reed's lament is sweet indeed,
above all such a dance in which they take a fair one by the hand.
The sons of this age, Hafez, have no grief for the wretched poor;
better, if it may be, to take a corner far from their midst.