An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 64
Though to parade one's skill before the Friend is ill manners,
the tongue is silent — yet the mouth is full of Arabic.
A fairy of hidden face, a demon in the coquetry of beauty —
the eye burned with wonder: what a marvel is this!
In this meadow no one has plucked a thornless rose; yea —
the lamp of Mustafa stands beside the spark of Abu Lahab.
Ask not the reason why the sphere became a nurse of the base,
for its favour-giving has a groundless pretext.
I would not buy for half a barleycorn the arch of cloister and hospice —
I, whose vault is the wine-bench, whose garret-foot is the jar's base.
The beauty of the vine's daughter is the light of our eye, perhaps,
for she lies behind a glass veil and a curtain of grape.
A thousand wits and manners I once possessed, O master;
now that I am drunk and ruined, virtue lies in ill manners.
Bring wine — for, like Hafez, my thousandfold support
is in the dawn's own weeping and the midnight's pleading.