An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 240
The March cloud has risen, the Nowruz wind has blown;
I crave the price of wine, and a minstrel to cry: 'It has come!'
The fair ones are on display, and I am shamed by my purse;
the burden of love and penury is heavy — yet borne it must be.
Bounty is in famine — one must not sell one's honor;
wine and the rose one must buy at the price of the cloak.
It seems a work will open from my fortune, for last night
I was steadfast in prayer, and the true dawn was breaking.
With a smiling lip and a hundred thousand laughs the rose came to the garden;
as though, in some corner, it had caught the scent of one who is generous.
If a skirt was torn in the realm of the rogue's abandon, what fear?
One must rend a garment even in the name of good repute.
These graces I have told, from your ruby lip — who has told them?
And this cruelty I have suffered, from your tress — who has seen the like?
If the sultan's justice inquire not after love's oppressed,
the recluses must sever their craving for repose.
The lover-slaying arrow — I know not who loosed it at Hafez's heart;
this much I know: from his fresh verse the blood was dripping.