An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 421
He had entered the Magians' house, and sprinkled it with water;
the Elder had sat, and cried his call to shaikh and youth.
The wine-bearers had all girt their belts to serve him;
yet from the tilted Turkish cap had pitched a canopy on the cloud.
The ray of cup and goblet had veiled the light of the moon;
the cheek of the Magian lads had ambushed the sun on its road.
The bride of fortune, in that bower, with a thousand airs,
had set her side-lock, and dashed rosewater on her rose-petal cheek.
The angel of mercy had taken up the goblet of joy,
and from the draught had sprinkled rosewater on houri's and fairy's cheek.
From the clamour and brawl of the sweet-working beauties,
the sugar was broken, the jasmine strewn, the rebab struck up.
I gave my greeting, and with a laughing face he said to me:
'O hangover-ridden, bankrupt, wine-battered wretch!'
'Who does what you have done — in feebleness of aim and judgment —
who leaves the treasure-house to pitch his tent upon a ruin?'
'I fear they grant you not the union of the waking fortune,
for you lie sleeping in the arms of a slumber-struck luck.'
'Come to the tavern, Hafez, that I may lay before you
a thousand ranks drawn up of prayers that have been granted.'
The sphere holds the led-horse's rein for Shah Nusrat al-Din;
come, behold his realm, its hand laid to the stirrup.
Reason, inspired of the Unseen — to gain itself some honour —
from the roof of the Empyrean has struck a hundred kisses on his court.