Un presagio da Hafez
Ghazal 414
Pleasure's rosebush is sprouting — where is the rose-cheeked cupbearer?
The spring wind blows — where is the sweet-savoured wine?
Each fresh rose calls to mind some rose-cheeked one; yet
where is the word-hearing ear? Where the discerning eye?
The banquet-hall of pleasure has no need of ambergris;
O sweet-breathed dawn — where is the Friend's musk-pod of tress?
I have no strength, O breeze, to bear my rose's selling of her charms;
I set my hand to the heart's blood — for God's sake, where is the idol?
If the dawn's candle boasted itself the equal of your cheek,
the foe grew glib of tongue — where is the burnished dagger?
She said: 'Perhaps you have no wish for a kiss of my ruby lip';
I perished of that longing — yet where is the strength, the choice?
Though in his verse he is the treasurer of wisdom's hoard, Hafez —
in this base age's grief, where is the word-shaping spirit?