Un presagio da Hafez
Ghazal 215
Within the tavern-street, O Lord, what a wild tumult rose at dawn,
that there was a fervour of the fair, of cupbearer, and candle, and torch!
The discourse of pure love, which stands beyond all letter and all sound,
rose in the wailing of the drum and reed, in clamour and in swelling roar.
The heated debates that raged within that gathering of holy madness
stood far beyond the schoolmen's hall and all the wrangling of the point.
The heart gave thanks for all the sweet coquetry of the cupbearer, yet,
from the unkindness of its lot, it nursed one small and lingering grief.
I made my careful reckoning: that magic-working, drunken eye
held in its herd a thousand sorcerers, and each a Samiri in craft.
I said to her: assign, I beg, one kiss to fall upon my lip;
she laughed and said: 'And since when have you had such dealings, then, with me?'
From my own star a fortunate glance is on its way toward me at last,
for yesternight the moon on high stood face to face with my love's cheek.
The beloved's mouth, which held within it the very cure of Hafez' pain—
alas, that in the hour of kindness how straitened and how mean it was!