An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 321
Though I have grown old, and worn of heart, and strengthless,
each time I called your face to mind, I grew young again.
Thanks be to God, that whatever I asked of God,
at the utmost of my resolve I came to triumph.
O young rose-tree, enjoy your fortune, for I
in your shade became the nightingale of the world's garden.
At first I had no knowledge of the depth and height of my being;
in the school of your grief I grew so keen a knower of fine points.
Apportionment keeps sending me back to the tavern,
however much I was tossed about, this way and that.
That day the door of meaning opened upon my heart,
when I became one of the dwellers at the Magian Elder's door.
On the highroad of everlasting fortune, throned on the seat of luck,
cup of wine in hand, I came to the heart's desire of friends.
From the hour when the sedition of your eye reached me,
I grew secure from the evil of the sedition of time's end.
Not old in years and months am I — it is the Friend who is faithless;
as my life passes over me, from that I have grown old.
Last night grace brought me its tidings: 'O Hafez,
come back, for I have stood surety for the pardon of your sin.'