An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 462
'O smiling mouth that mirrors a casket of pearls' —
O Lord, how fitting the turning of that crescent line of down!
For now the fancy of your union sweetly beguiles me;
let us see what design this phantom form will play.
Pour wine — for though I have become the world's black ledger,
when can one despair of the never-failing grace?
Cupbearer, bring a cup, and draw me from my cell,
that I may roam from door to door, a rogue and reckless one.
Pass not by four things, if you are wise and shrewd:
safety, and unclouded wine, a beloved, and a place apart.
Since the pattern of the age holds firm in no one state,
Hafez, raise no complaint — let us drink our wine for now.
The cup of the mind runs clear in the cycle of the age's Asaf;
'rise, and give me to drink a wine purer than clear water.'
'The realm has gloried in his glory and his fortune';
O Lord, may this worth and these heights endure forever —
The throne-adorner of fortune, that fount of splendour and pomp,
the proof of realm and faith, Bu-Nasr Bu'l-Ma'ali.