An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 370
What rectitude do you seek of us, who cried the call unto the drunk?
At the round of your drunken narcissus-eye we said the prayer for peace.
Fling wide the tavern door for me, for nothing opened from the cloister;
believe it or believe it not — such was the word, and we have said it.
I have fallen to ruin, O cupbearer, from your eye; and yet
a calamity that comes from the Beloved — a thousand welcomes we bade it.
If you show me no mercy, in the end you will taste remorse;
keep in your mind that meaning, and where, in your service, we said it.
I called your stature a box-tree — it brought me deep disgrace;
why did we frame that likeness, and why did we speak that slander?
My liver, like the musk-pod, turned to blood — I merit no less than this,
in recompense for speaking, of your tress, a word of Cathay's deceit.
You turned to fire, O Hafez, yet it kindled not with the Friend;
of the rose's broken faith, it seems, we but told the tale to the breeze.