An omen from Hafez
Ghazal 77
A nightingale held a bright-hued petal of rose in its beak,
and over that leaf and its song poured sweet, plaintive laments.
I asked: in the very hour of union, what is this weeping and cry?
It answered: the beloved's unveiling has held us in this plight.
If the Friend sat not beside us, there is no cause to protest;
a king in his fortune felt shame at the beggary of love.
Our pleading and our coaxing take no hold on the Friend's beauty;
blest is the man who tasted his fortune from those tender ones.
Rise, that we may scatter our soul on the pen of that Painter,
who set all these wondrous figures within the compass's turn.
If you are a disciple of love's road, dread not ill-repute;
Shaikh Sanʿan left his cloak in pledge at the wine-seller's house.
Sweet was the hour of that gentle qalandar, who, on his wanderings,
chanted the angels' praise within the girdle of the zunnar.
The eye of Hafez, beneath the eaves of that houri-natured one's hall,
held the bearing of 'gardens beneath which the rivers flow.'