An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 417
My delight is unending from that heart-desired ruby lip;
my affair goes to my wish — praise be to God.
O headstrong fortune, draw her tight into your embrace;
now draw the cup of gold, now the heart-desired ruby.
They made us a byword for the way of the rend —
the ignorant Elders, the shaikhs gone astray.
Of the ascetic's deeds we made repentance,
and of the worshipper's doing — God forgive!
O soul, what can I say to tell your parting's tale? —
one eye, and a hundred tears; one soul, and a hundred sighs.
May no infidel behold this grief my eye has seen —
from your stature the cypress, from your cheek the moon.
Longing for your lip has swept from Hafez's memory
the lesson of the night and the dawn-hour's litany.