An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 325
If the dust from the sole of my idol's foot should come to hand,
I'll trace a line of that dust upon the tablet of my sight.
In longing for your embrace I have been drowned, and yet I hope
the wave of my own tears may bear me at last to shore.
If her summons reach me in the very seeking of the soul,
then, like the candle, that instant I'll yield up my soul in a breath.
Today toss not your head from faith with me, but think
upon that night when I, from grief, lift up my hands in prayer.
Your two black tresses, in their heart-caressing of the lovers,
gave the lovers their repose — and bore my own repose away.
O wind, bring me a breeze from off that wine,
for its scent is a healer, the queller of my hangover.
If the Friend set no assayer to my heart's false coin,
I count the ready cash of the soul, at her breath, out of my eye.
Shake not your skirt free of me, the dust-strewn one, for after I am gone
the wind cannot bear my dust away from this your door.
Hafez, since her ruby lip is as dear to me as the soul,
it were a whole life — that instant when I bring the soul to her lip.