Un presagio da Hafez
Ghazal 199
These preachers who make such a show within the niche and from the pulpit,
when they withdraw to privacy do that quite other, secret deed.
A doubt I have—go, put the question to the learned of the gathering:
why do the men who bid us to repent themselves repent so little?
It is as though they hold no faith in that great Reckoning to come,
that in the very Judge's work they ply such fraud and counterfeit.
O Lord, set these new-risen upstarts back astride their proper asses,
for all this haughty airs of theirs springs from a Turkish slave and mule.
O beggar of the cloister, rise! For in the Magian sanctuary
they pour a water out that turns the poorest hearts to men of wealth.
His boundless beauty, howsoever many lovers it lays low,
yet from the unseen another troop, out of pure love, lift up their heads.
Before the tavern-door of love, O angel, chant your song of praise,
for it is there that they ferment and knead the very clay of Adam.
At dawn from off the highest Throne there came a cry; then Reason said:
'It is as though the holy host are learning Hafez' verse by heart.'