Hafiz - Shams-ud din Mahommed

1320 - 1391

 

"Ask for wine and scatter flowers. What do you expect from this world?"
Said the rose at dawn.What is is your word, nightingale?
Take your seat to the garden and take the lips of your beloved.
Kiss the cheek of Saqi, drink wine, and smell the rose.
Let your cypress stalk towards the garden so that
The cypress of the garden may learn charm from your stature.
To whom your smiling bud grants its fortune?
O elegant rose-bush, for whose sake are you growing?
Today when your bazaar is full of the excitement of the buyers,
Discover and save a treasure from the capital of beauty.
Since the candle of good-looks is on the passage of the wind,
Salvage a merit from the candle of beauty.
It would be good if that tress, each of whose ringlets is worth a hundred musk bags,
had some scent of recent good-temper.
Each bird came to the rose-garden of the monarch with a story,
The nightingale with its songs and Hafiz with his ghazals.
Dear friends, there's a Friend
inside the night. Remember.

And the duty of serving others,
remember that.

In the middle of any excitement,
when the musical moan of your lover
comes, remember.

As you put your hopeful hand on her waist,
as the face of one bringing you a song
lights with recognition, remember.

Just as your horse
is passing the others, remember.

As you sit down to take command,
remember Hafiz' face and the way of kindness.

As the empty threshold
does, remember.
God's Light, I see
where and what that is,

but who drinks the dregs
in this wine-house?

I see the door,
and the prayer rug pointing its need,
and the archway.

I see who leads the way to Mecca.

I see the dignity of being a lover,
and the disgrace, and the playfulness.

I see the Kaaba.

I catch an eastwind fragrance every morning.

I see the point of unity in all creation,
with no why or how.

I see poor philosophy so far from reality.

I see that my fancy images fail.

But to whom shall I say what's left?

Don't come complaining
that Hafiz keeps claiming
"I see, I see,"
him and his crowd of God-lovers!
Don't ask me to describe the taste of my poison.
At the end of years wandering I've chosen a Friend.
Don't ask who! I weep in the doorway.
Last night I heard you saying what cannot be said.
Now you motion to me, Don't tell.
The pain of being in my room alone is really what cannot be spoken.
So, like Hafiz, I walk the love-road, aware in a way that has no name.

 

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