An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 361
She who has trampled me like the road's own dust in cruelty's tread,
I kiss that dust, and of her passing footstep beg my pardon still.
Not mine to moan beneath your tyranny — God shield me from it —
a slave of faith am I, an attendant wishing only your fortune.
Within the coiling of your tress I have knotted a length of hope;
let not the hand of longing leave me empty-handed at the last.
A single mote of dust am I, yet sweet my station in your street;
I dread, O Friend, that on a sudden a wind should bear me off.
At dawn the Tavern-Elder held the world-revealing cup to me,
and in that mirror made me knowing of the splendour of your face.
A Sufi of the cloister of the holy world am I; and yet
for now the Magian convent stands appointed as my place.
Rise, and with me the roadside-beggar walk toward the tavern gate,
that in that circle you may see what rank and worth are mine.
Drunk you swept by, and of your Hafez not a thought you spared;
alas, if once my sighing seize the hem of your bright beauty!
It gladdened me that dawn the Khosrow of the East proclaimed:
'For all my kingship, I am but the slave of Turanshah.'