An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 235
Oh, blessed the hour when the Friend returns,
when to the desire of the grief-struck the balm of sorrow returns!
Before the marshalled host of her image I drove the piebald of my eye,
in the hope that that horseman would return.
Unless my head roll into the curve of her polo-stick,
I will not call it a head — what use is my head's labor?
Like the dust I sit forever at the head of her road,
in the longing that she pass again this way.
A heart that has sealed its pact with the head of her twin tresses —
think not that with such a heart repose returns.
What tyrannies the nightingales have borne from winter's grip,
in the hope that once more the fresh spring returns!
From the pattern-weaver of fate this hope is left, O Hafez:
that, cypress-like, the idol may return into my hand.