An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 65
What is sweeter than pleasure and converse and garden and spring?
Where is the cupbearer? Say — what is the cause of this waiting?
Every glad moment that falls to hand, reckon it a prize;
no one has knowledge of what the end of the affair may be.
The thread of life is fastened to a hair — take heed;
grieve for your own self — what is the grief of the age to you?
The meaning of the Water of Life and the garden of Iram —
what is it but the bank of a stream and pleasant wine?
Since the chaste and the drunk are both of one same tribe,
to whose coquetry shall we yield the heart? Where lies the choice?
What does the silent sphere know of the secret behind the veil?
O pretender, what is your quarrel with the veil-keeper?
If the slave's lapse and error are held of no account,
what is the meaning of the pardon and mercy of the All-Forgiving?
The ascetic craved the wine of Kawthar, and Hafez the cup;
let us see, in the midst, what the Creator's own desire may be.