An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 260
O coy cypress of beauty, who move so sweetly in your grace,
the lovers, at each glance of yours, have a hundred pleas.
Blessed be your fair face, for in eternity itself
they cut the robe of coquetry to your cypress-stature's measure.
Whoever longs for the ambergris breath of your tress,
tell him: like aloes-wood, burn and yield on passion's fire.
The moth had its heart's burning from the taper's flame; but I—
without the candle of your cheek my heart has only its melting.
The Sufi who, lacking you, renounced the wine last night,
broke his vow the moment he saw the tavern open again.
The rival's taunt cannot debase my untarnished worth:
like gold, though they should crush me in the assayer's jaws.
The heart that came to know the circling of your street's Kaaba,
in longing for that sanctuary has no thought of Hijaz.
What need, each breath, to wash in the blood of the eye, when—
lacking the archway of your brow—no prayer of mine is valid?
As the wine went clapping its hands again to the jar's mouth,
so went Hafez, who last night heard the secret from the cupbearer's lip.