An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 376
Friends, in the rose's season it is best we strive for joy;
this is the word of the people of heart — with our soul let us hearken to it.
There is no bounty in any man, and the hour of mirth runs out;
the remedy is only this — to sell the prayer-mat for wine.
It is a sweet, joy-quickening air — O God, be pleased to send
some tender one, to whose bright face we may drink the rose-red wine.
The sphere's own organ-music is the highwayman of the artful;
how should we not lament this grief, and why not raise our cry?
The rose burst forth in bloom, and no wine did we pour upon it;
and so, from the fire of loss and longing, we boil within, and burn.
From the tulip's goblet we draw up a wine of pure imagining;
far be the evil eye — that, wineless and minstrel-less, we soar in rapture.
Hafez, this wondrous state — to whom shall it ever be told, that we
are nightingales who, in the very season of the rose, fall silent?