by Dick Davis
Was unaware that God was there
And called His name out ceaselessly.”
I asked him next, “And beauties’ curls
That tumble down so sinuously,
What do they mean? Whence do they come?”
“Hafez,” the sage replied to me,
“Their source is your distracted heart
That asks these questions constantly.”
LAST NIGHT, AT DAWN, IN MY DISTRESS, SALVATION
was given to me;
In darkness then, life’s water, a libation,
was given to me.
Rapt from myself by that pure lambent light,
The wine of essence, and of all creation,
was given to me.
O dawn of Fortune, moment of pure Glory,
That night when notice of my liberation
was given to me!
I gazed in Beauty’s mirror then, for there
My essence, shining for my contemplation,
was given to me.
If I was happy then, it’s no surprise –
I was deserving, and a just donation
was given to me.
That day a heavenly voice brought me good news;
The strength to bear this harsh world’s subjugation
was given to me.
It was Hafez’s spirit, and the sighs of those
Who rise at dawn, by which, at last, salvation
was given to me.
WHEN MY LOVE LIFTS HIS GLASS,
throughout the town
Love’s market suddenly
comes tumbling down.
I wept before his feet;
I could not stand –
Would he so much as lend
a helping hand?
I was a fish, I fell
into the sea
So that my lover’s hook
would lodge in me;
And anyone who saw
his eyes would say;
“Where’s the police, to haul
this drunk away?”
Happy the heart that lifts
a glass of wine
Whose vintage, like Hafez’s,
is divine.
PLANT FRIENDSHIP’S TREE – THE HEART’S DESIRE
Is the fruit it bears;
And uproot enmity – which brings
Sorrows and cares.
Be friendly, easy, with drunkards –
Good fellowship’s theirs;
It’s pride brings the hangover, not
The wine-seller’s wares.
Talk with your friends, deep in the night,
And see how life fares;
Since when we are gone the heavens
Will bring others our cares;
And welcome the spring in your heart
Since the world never spares
To provide for us roses and songbirds,
Whoever despairs.
And love your belovèd – the heavens require you
To be one who bears
The grief of Majnun all your life:
God grant me my prayers!
Your heart is so tired! You feel caught
In the weary world’s snares
But sip at your wine, and hear in your heart
The hope it declares:
That Hafez will sit in his orchard
By the stream that he shares
With his cypress-slim love, God willing,
In the place that is theirs.
TO GIVE UP WINE, AND HUMAN BEAUTY? AND TO GIVE UP LOVE?
No, I won’t do it.
A hundred times I said I would; what was I thinking of?
No, I won’t do it.
To say that paradise, its houris, and its shade are more
To me than is the dusty street before my lover’s door?
No, I won’t do it.
Sermons, and wise men’s words, are signs, and that’s how we should treat them;
I mouthed such metaphors before, but now – I won’t repeat them;
No, I won’t do it.
I’ll never understand myself, I’ll never really know me,
Until I’ve joined the wine-shop’s clientele, and that will show me;
I have to do it.
The preacher told me, “Give up wine” – contempt was in the saying;
“Sure,” I replied. Why should I listen to these donkeys braying?
No, I won’t do it.
The sheikh was angry when he told me, “Give up love!” My brother,
There’s no end to our arguing about it, so why bother?
And I won’t do it.
My abstinence is this: that when I wink and smile at beauty
It won’t be from the pulpit in the mosque – I know my duty;
No, I won’t do it.
Hafez, good fortune’s with the Magian sage, and I am sure
I’ll never cease to kiss the dust that lies before his door;
No, I won’t do it.
THAT BUSYBODY CRITICIZES ME
For loving love and revelry –
But it’s my knowledge of the hidden world
That motivates his enmity:
Don’t only look at faults and weaknesses,
See love in its totality –
It’s the untalented who always notice
Transgressions and deformity.
The fragrance of a houri’s borne upon
The wind now, and caresses me;
She dabs our tavern’s dirt inside her collar
Because its scent is heavenly –
And when our serving boy’s all smiles and winks
He slaps Islam’s austerity
So hard that even Sohayb wouldn’t shun
The red wine that he serves to me!
When friends meet heart to heart, this is the key
To happiness’s treasury;
May no one hesitate at such a time
Or hold back then, reluctantly.
The stories Hafez tells provoke our tears,
That fall, blood-red, since he
Recalls the time that lies between our youth
And our white-haired senility.
DRINK WINE DOWN BY THE GLASSFUL, AND YOU’LL TEAR
Out of your heart the roots of your despair –
Keep your heart open, like your glass, not sealed up
Like a flagon, stoppered and doctrinaire;
Drink down the wine of self-forgetfulness;
You’ll boast less once you’re not so self-aware.
Be stone-like in your steps, not like a cloud
That shifts its colors, gadding everywhere;
Rise, struggle like Hafez…And when you find
Your love, prostrate yourself before her there.
MY LOVE FOR YOU IS LIKE A YOUTHFUL TREE
of wonder
And meeting you is all that there can be
of wonder
My consciousness is now so drowned within
Our meeting that it’s like a whelming sea
of wonder
Neither the meeting nor the one who meets
Remain within this spectral fantasy
of wonder
Show me one face that seeks for him, that lacks
The dark mole of our incredulity
and wonder
And everywhere, from every side, I’ve heard
These searching questions put perpetually
in wonder
From head to toe Hafez’s being lives
Within his love for this same youthful tree
of wonder
AT DAWN, UPON THE BREEZE, I CAUGHT
the scent of my belovèd’s hair,
And once again my crazy heart
was laboring in its old despair.
Out of the garden of my breast
I’ve torn his sapling silhouette,
Since when my longings for him blossom,
grief is the bitter fruit they set.
Fearing the torment of his love,
>
I freed my heart from him; but when
My heart dripped blood, the path its drops
marked out…led back to him again.
I saw the full moon rise above
his castle’s roof, splendid and bright;
But when his shining sun arose,
the moon, for shame, concealed its light.
I took musicians at their word,
and always, everywhere, I sought
For messengers who’d traveled love’s
hard road, and all the news they brought.
My lover’s way, from end to end,
is good and kind, and little cares
Whether a man tells Moslem beads
or murmurs Christian prayers.
I was amazed to see Hafez
drink wine last night; but then I knew
Better than to object to this –
he drank as secret Sufis do.
May God forgive his eyebrow’s curve
That’s made me weak and powerless,
Since it can comfort, with a glance,
A sick man’s feverish distress.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT OUR HARPS AND LUTES ADVISE US,
when heard aright?
“Men say that wine’s unlawful – when you drink,
keep out of sight!”
They say you shouldn’t talk of love, or hear
love spoken of –
That’s a hard lesson that they’re teaching us,
to give up love.
Love’s beauty they despise – and as for lovers,
they deride them;
They mock the old, and tell the young that love
must be denied them.
I waited at the door, and was deceived
a hundred ways,
Longing to know what was decided there,
veiled from my gaze.
They pester the old Magian priest; look how
these devotees
Harass the old man with their scorn, and their
impieties…
One glance can buy a hundred different forms
of honor’s name –
And in this business it’s the pretty girls
who are to blame.
Some strive and strain and struggle to be with
the longed-for friend,
And others are content to let Fate send
what it will send.
But when all’s said and done, don’t trust the world’s
fidelity,
Since it’s a workshop where all things are changed
perpetually.
Bring wine! Qur’an reciters, clerics, sheikhs,
religion’s spies –
Look well at each of them, and see a man
who lives by lies.
WHAT MEMORIES! I ONCE LIVED ON
the street that you lived on,
And to my eyes how bright the dust
before your doorway shone!
We were a lily and a rose:
our talk was then so pure
That what was hidden in your heart
and what I said were one!
And when our hearts discoursed
with Wisdom’s ancient words,
Love’s commentary solved each crux
within our lexicon.
I told my heart that I would never be
without my friend;
But when our efforts fail, and hearts
Are weak, what can be done?
Last night, for old times’ sake, I saw
the place where we once drank;
A cask was lying there, its lees
like blood; mud was its bung.
How much I wandered, asking why
the pain of parting came –
But Reason was a useless judge,
and answers? He had none.
And though it’s true the turquoise seal
of Bu Es’haq shone brightly,
His splendid kingdom and his reign
were all too quickly gone.
Hafez, you’ve seen a strutting partridge
whose cry sounds like a laugh –
He’s careless of the hawk’s sharp claws
by which he’ll be undone.
THOUGH WINE IS PLEASURABLE, AND THOUGH THE BREEZE
Seems soaked in roses, see your harp
Is silent when you drink – because the ears
Of morals officers are sharp!
If you can find a wine jug and a friend,
Drink sensibly, and with discretion,
Because the dreadful days we’re living through
Are rife with mischief, and oppression.
See that you hide your wine-cup in your sleeve;
Your jug’s lip sheds its wine, blood-red –
And, in the same way, these cruel times ensure
Red blood is copiously shed.
We’d better wash away the wine stains from
Our cloaks with tears of penitence –
Now is the season for sobriety,
For days of pious abstinence.
The heavens have become a sieve that strains
Upon us blood, and it is full
Of bloody scraps like royal Khosrow’s crown,
Together with King Kasra’s skull.
Don’t think that as the heavens turn they’ll bring
A trace of solace or relief;
Their hurtful curvature is through and through
Made up of wretchedness and grief.
Pars knows the splendor of your verse, Hafez –
It’s made the towns of Eraq glad;
So now’s the time to try it out elsewhere –
Tabriz, perhaps, and then Baghdad.
MAY YOUR DEAR BODY NEVER NEED
A doctor’s expertise,
Your delicate existence know
No hurtful injuries.
Since all of our horizons’ health
Depends upon your own,
May ill-health never visit you
With noxious maladies;
And when the wind of autumn blows
Across these meadows, may
Its passage pass your stature by,
That’s like a cypress tree’s;
When your young beauty shows itself,
May spiteful gossip find
No sneaking opportunity
To spread its calumnies.
Outward and inward beauty spring
From your perfections! May
Your form be faultless, and your soul
Stay free from miseries –
And may the eye of one who casts
The evil eye on you
Be rue within your beauty’s flames,
Consumed by what it sees.
Your balm is Hafez’s sweet words –
And if you look for these
You won’t need rose water again
Or candied remedies.
TO HAVE MY HEART ACHIEVE ITS GOAL
grief melted my sad soul – to no effect;
And I was burned within the fire
of this inane desire – to no effect;
Alas, that in my questing for
wealth’s book, I’m now dirt-poor!
That universal ridicule
proclaims me sorrow’s fool – to no effect!
What pains I suffered as I sought
admission to his court,
Begging for alms, for charity
from those who’d comfort me – to no effect;
One night he joked and said, “It’s plain
I’ll be your chamberlain!”
Ah, how I’ve striven to deserve him,
to be his slave and serve him – to no effect.
He sent word saying that he’d be
with libertines like me
(Who’s called the Dregs-Drinker), so I
hoped that I’d catch his eye – to no effect.
I dreamed that in my drunkenness
I might achieve success
And kiss hi
s ruby lips; but all
I drank was grief and gall – to no effect.
Without good reason never stray
upon the lovers’ way;
How cautiously I’ve traveled there,
beset with grief and care – to no effect.
Hafez has tried a thousand wiles,
a thousand tricks and trials,
Hoping that by his wits and zeal
He’d bring that boy to heel – to no effect.
YOU’VE SENT NO WORD OF HOW YOU ARE
It’s been a few days…quite a few –
And where’s our secret go-between
To take my messages to you?
I know that I can never reach
To your exalted sanctuary,
Unless your kindness makes you take
A few steps on the path to me.
The wine is poured into the jug,
The rose has flung away her veil –
So come now, drink a glass or two,
Seize joy, let happiness prevail!
Sugar dissolved in rose water
Won’t cure my heart; but if you could
Dissolve your curses in your kisses,
That distillation surely would.
Ah, puritan, pass by the street
Of shame, don’t let us interrupt you –
Don’t linger here with libertines,
Our sordid chatter might corrupt you!
You’ve numbered all the faults of wine,
So number all its virtues too;
Don’t throw out wisdom for the sake
Of what a few drunk oafs might do.
Beggars who crowd the wine-shop door,
God is your friend; but I advise you,
Don’t hope for gifts from cattle who
Think they’re your betters and despise you:
The ancient wine-seller was right
When he declared, “Don’t talk about
The secrets of your smoldering heart
To every passing, boorish lout.”
Hafez’s heart is smoldering with
His passion for your sun-like face;
All Glory’s yours, so spare a glance
For those defeated by disgrace.
NOT EVERY SUFI’S TRUSTWORTHY, OR PURE IN SPIRIT,
And burning is no more than many of them merit.
Our Sufi prays at dawn, transported with delight,
But watch how drunkenly he welcomes in the night!
Would that a touchstone could display hypocrisy,
Blackening the liar’s face with shame, for all to see.