An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 234
When, like the sun, the wine rises from the east of the cup,
from the garden of the cupbearer's cheek a thousand tulips spring.
The breeze breaks the hyacinth's curl over the rose's head
when the scent of that curl breathes forth from the meadow's midst.
The tale of the night of parting is no passing thing,
whose faintest hint a hundred treatises could set forth.
From the overturned table of the sphere no bounty is to be hoped,
that without vexation a hundred griefs and one morsel come forth.
By one's own striving none may trace the way to the jewel of the goal;
it were mere fancy that this work should come to pass unassigned by Heaven.
If, like Noah the prophet, you have patience in the flood's grief,
the calamity turns aside, and a thousand-year desire is won.
When the breeze of your tress passes over Hafez's tomb,
from the dust of his frame a hundred thousand tulips spring.