Un presagio da Hafez
Ghazal 94
For that heart-caressing Friend of mine I hold thanks laced with reproach;
if you are one who knows love's subtleties, hear out this tale.
Wageless and thankless was every service that I ever did;
O Lord, may no man serve a master void of all regard.
No one gives so much as water to the thirsty-lipped rends;
you would say the knowers of the saints have quit this whole province.
Wind not, O heart, in her tress that is coiled like a lasso, for there
you will see heads lopped away — without crime, without offence.
Your eye, with a single glance, drank our blood — and you approve;
my soul, it is not lawful to shield the shedder of blood.
In this black night of mine the road to the goal is wholly lost;
step forth from some corner, O guiding star, and show the way.
Whichever way I turned, it did but add to my dismay;
beware of this wilderness, beware of this endless road.
O sun of the fair, my inmost self is seething like a cauldron;
admit me but one hour into the shadow of your grace.
How shall one ever frame an end to the picture of this road,
when at its very outset lie a hundred thousand stages?
Though you have carried off my honour, I will not turn from your door;
the tyranny of the beloved is sweeter than the pretender's care.
Your love will yet come to your rescue, even if, like Hafez,
you should recite the Qur'an by heart in the fourteen readings.