An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 422
O you who have come with the chain of the long tress,
yours be the moment — for you come to caress the madman.
Play the coquette a while, and change your wonted way,
since you have come to inquire after the people of need.
Before your stature I would die — in peace or in war alike,
since, whatever befalls, you have come to grace coquetry itself.
You have blended water and fire from your ruby lip;
far be the evil eye — for you have come a rare conjuror.
Bravo on your tender heart, that for the sake of merit
you have come to pray over your own slain of the glance.
What weight has my abstinence with you, that to plunder my heart
drunk and dishevelled you have come into the secret's cell?
Hafez said: 'Your frock is wine-stained once again;
perhaps you have come back from the creed of that troop.'