An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 471
Who will bring from my heart-ravisher the caress of a written line?
Where is the courier-breeze, would it but do one kindness?
I reckoned it up: reason's counsel on the road of love
is a dewdrop that would trace its mark upon the sea.
Come — though my cloak lies pawned in the taverns,
you will find no coin of endowment-wealth set in my name.
The talk of how and why breeds only headache, O heart;
take up the goblet and rest a breath from your own living.
The roadside physician knows nothing of love's pain;
go, O dead-hearted one, and conjure a Messiah's breath.
My heart is sick of cant and the drum beaten under the blanket;
I resolve to raise my banner at the tavern's door.
Come — the moment's true reckoners would sell both worlds
for a single cup of pure wine and an idol's company.
Unbroken pleasure and ease are not the way of love;
if you would be our comrade, drink down the sting of grief.
I make no grievance; yet the cloud of the Friend's mercy
gave not a drop to the parched field of the liver-thirsty.
Why is that one's sugar not bought for a single barleycorn,
who from a reed-pen scattered a hundred showers of sweetness?
A tribute worthy of your worth, O king, is not in Hafez's hand —
save a night's prayer and a dawn's imploring.