Hafez

Now, more than ever...

The one who gave your lovely face its rosy/red and white/Can give me peace, and patience to endure/my wretched plight;

The one who taught your curls their airy/arrogance can give/Me justice to redress the hopeless grief/in which I live.

Oh, I despaired of Farhad when his hand/assigned the rein/Of his bewildered heart to Shirin's lips,/and her disdain.

If treasuries of gold are lacking, well,/contentment's beckoned;/The one who gives the first to kings sees beggars/receive the second.

The world displays herself to us as such/a charming bride,/But life's the dowry that men pay to lie/at her sweet side.

From now on it's the cypress and the clear/streams' banks for me;/Especially now spring's promise scents the breeze/incessantly.

"Justice!" I cry. And since, Qavam al-din,/we've had to part,/This age's grief, your absent face, usurp/Hafez's heart.

Tr. Dick Davis, Faces of Love, 74-75.