Un presagio da Hafez
Ghazal 317
I say it openly, and I am gladdened by my own words:
I am the slave of love, and free of both the worlds.
I am the bird of the garden of holiness — what shall I tell of parting,
of how I came to fall into this snare-ground of mischance?
I was an angel, and highest paradise was my dwelling;
Adam it was who brought me to this ruined cloister.
The shade of the Tuba, the houri's solace, the pool's brimming lip
all slipped from my memory in the longing for your street.
On the tablet of my heart there is nothing but the alif of the Friend's stature;
what can I do — the master taught me no other letter.
No astrologer ever read the star of my fortune;
O Lord, under what ascendant was I born of the mother-world?
Since I became a ring-eared slave at the door of love's tavern,
each moment a fresh grief comes to me by way of congratulation.
The pupil of my eye drinks my heart's blood — and it is just,
for why did I give my heart to the darling of the people?
Wipe the face of Hafez with your tress-tip, clear of tears,
else this ceaseless flood will bear away my very ground.