An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 191
Who now, of pure munificence, will keep his faith with me,
and, for one ill-doer such as I, work one brief hour of good?
First, on the breath of flute and reed, she bears his word into my heart,
then with a single measure of wine she keeps her faith with me.
That heart-thief who has worn the soul away and never oped my heart's desire—
despair of her one must not; it may be yet she'll deal in tenderness.
I said: no knot of that dark tress have I unloosed since first I was;
she said: 'Twas I myself who bade it play the rogue and cheat with you.
The wool-clad, hot-tongued zealot has caught no whiff of love at all;
breathe him one hint of its wild wine, that he cast sober sense away.
For a nameless beggar such as I, so rare a friend comes hard to win—
when would a sultan take his secret joy beside a tavern rend?
From that all-coiling, twisting tress, tyranny is an easy thing;
what care for its chain and fetter has any soul that plays the rake?
Numberless has the host of grief now grown—I beg of fortune aid,
that Fakhr al-Din, Abd al-Samad, be there to share and soothe the woe.
Against her trick-brimmed eye, O Hafez, level no aim of yours,
for that night-coloured tress of hers plays many a cunning rogue's device.