An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 297
The tongue of the pen has no power to tell of parting;
else I would unfold to you the whole long tale of parting.
Alas for my life's span, that, in the hope of union,
it reached its end, yet the season of parting found no end.
This head that I rubbed, in pride, against the summit of the sphere —
in truth, I have laid it down at the threshold of parting.
How shall I spread my wing in longing for union,
when the bird of my heart has moulted its plumes in the nest of parting?
Now what remedy, when into a whirlpool, in grief's own sea,
my patience's frail skiff has plunged from the sail of parting?
Little is left before life's ship goes down,
from the surge of longing for you, in the shoreless sea of parting.
If parting should fall into my hands, I would slay it outright;
for black be the day of separation, and cursed the very hearth of parting!
I am comrade to the host of fancy, and messmate of endurance,
consort of the fire of severance, conjoined star of parting.
How shall I lay claim, upon my soul, to your union, when
my body is fate's own deputy and my heart the surety of parting?
From the burning of longing my heart is grilled, far from the Friend;
forever I eat my liver's blood at the banquet-board of parting.
When the sphere saw my head made captive in the ring of love,
it bound the neck of my patience with the cord of parting.
Had this road reached its end on the foot of longing, O Hafez,
none would have yielded the rein of severance into the hand of parting.