An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 483
At dawn a wayfarer, in a certain land,
was telling this riddle to a companion:
“O Sufi, wine grows clear only then,
when it has kept a forty-day retreat within the flask.”
God loathes, a hundredfold, that cloak
which keeps a hundred idols hidden in its sleeve.
Chivalry, though it be a name without a trace,
offer your plea to a tender one.
There is a reward for you, O lord of the harvest,
if you show mercy to a gleaner of the ears.
I see the joy of pleasure in no one,
neither a heart's cure nor a faith's true pain.
The inmost hearts have darkened — it may be that from the unseen
some recluse will kindle a lamp.
If the finger of Solomon be not there,
what virtue does the graving of a seal-ring hold?
Though the way of the fair is a hot temper,
what harm, if she made peace with a sorrowing one?
Show me the tavern road, that I may ask
the outcome of my fate from one who sees ahead.
Neither has Hafez the presence of the solitude's lesson,
nor the scholar a knowledge of certainty.