HAFIZ


It Felt Love

How did the rose ever open its heart

And give to this world

All its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light

Against its being,

Otherwise, we all remain too frightened.


My Brilliant Image

One day the sun admitted,

I am just a shadow.

I wish I could show you the infinite incandescence

That has cast my brilliant image!

I wish I could show you,

When you are lonely or in darkness,

The astonishing Light

Of your own Being!


I know the way you can get

I know the way you can get when you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens, your sweet muscles cramp.

Children become concerned about a strange look that appears in your eyes

Which even begins to worry your own mirror and nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness and call an important conference in a tall tree.

They decide which secret code to chant to help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness that arrays itself against the world

And throws sharp stones and spears into the innocent and into one’s self.

O I know the way you can get if you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart every sentence your friends and teachers say, looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure from every angle in your darkness

The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once trusted.

I know the way you can get if you have not had a drink from Love’s hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of the vital need to keep remembering God,

So you will come to know and see Him as being so playful and wanting, just wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says: bring your cup near me, for all I care about is quenching

your thirst for freedom!

All a sane man can ever care about is giving Love!

Awake awhile

Awake awhile.

It does not have to be forever, right now.

One step upon the sky's soft skirt would be enough.

Hafiz, awake awhile.

Just one true moment of Love will last for days.

Rest all your elaborate plans and tactics for knowing Him,

For they are all just frozen spring buds.

Far, so far from summer's Divine gold.

Awake, my dear.

Be kind to your sleeping heart.

Take it out into the vast fields of Light and let it breathe.

Say, "Love, give me back my wings.

Lift me, lift me nearer."

Say to the sun and moon, say to our dear Friend,

"I will take You up now, Beloved,

On that wonderful Dance You promised!"


Now is the time

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child's training wheels

To be laid aside

When you finally live

With veracity

And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy

Whom the Beloved

Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,

Why do you still

Throw sticks at your heart

And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside

That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time

For you to compute the impossibility

That there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is sacred.


Love’s prisoner

Thy beauty is my being’s breath
Thy majesty my fond’s death;

Where’er thou art, my sweetest fair,

All life’s felicity is there.

Loving thy loveliness divine,

Thy smile more potent far than wine,

All languid as thy slumb’rous eye

Intoxicated here I lie.

Ah, but thy finger-tips to kiss

That were a more than earthly bliss,

Which to achieve were greater gain

Than monarch o’er both worlds to reign.

Anguished I yearn your lips to touch;

Was ever heart’s distraction such?

A heart held firm and motionless

A prisoner of thy scented tress.

Thy mouth, the huntsman of my mind

Plots with thy locks my heart to bind;
And how shall time unspring the snare
That keeps me fast and fettered there?


Thou who didst dwell

Thou who didst dwell where Ruknabad once ran

Melodious beneath the Persian sky,

And watch with mind serene and steady eye

The tragic play that is the life of man;

And, seeing it was so once earth began

And shall continue after thou and I,

Being spent as swiftly as a lover’s sigh
Depart upon death’s trackless caravan;

Out of dross sound by sovereign alchemy

Didst fashion melodies of liquid gold,

Creating riches of thy penury,

Transmuting death to immortality:

Accept these words that leave the whole untold,

And in fresh youth renew thy wisdom old.


Who Has Bid Thee Ask No More

Beloved, who has bid thee ask no more

How fares my life ? to play the enemy

And ask not where he dwells that was thy friend ?

Thou art the breath of mercy passing o*er

The whole wide world, and the offender I ;

Ah, let the rift my tears have channelled end,

Question the past no more !

If thou would ‘st know the secret of Love’s fire.

It shall be manifest unto thine eyes :

Question the torch flame burning steadfastly,

But ask no more the sweet wind’s wayward choir.

Ask me of faith and love that never dies ;

Darius, Alexander’s sovereignty,

I sing of these no more.

Ask not the monk to give thee Truth’s pure gold.

He hides no riches ’neath his lying guise ;

And ask not him to teach thee alchemy

Whose treasure-house is bare, his hearth-stone cold.

Ask to what goal the wandering dervish hies,

They knew not his desire who counselled thee ;

Question his rags no more !

And in their learned books thou ’lt seek in vain

The key to Love’s locked gateway ; Heart grown wise

In pain and sorrow, ask no remedy !

But when the time of roses comes again,

Take what it gives, oh Hafiz, ere it flies,

And ask not why the hour has brought it thee,

And wherefore ask no more !

Translation Gertrude Lowthian Bell


Ode 44

Last night, as half asleep I dreaming lay,

Half naked came she in her little shift,

With tilted glass, and verses on her lips;

Narcissus-eyes all shining for the fray,

Filled full of frolic to her wine-red lips,

Warm as a dewy rose, sudden she slips

Into my bed – just in her little shift.

Said she, half naked, half asleep, half heard,

With a soft sigh betwixt each lazy word,

‘Oh my old lover, do you sleep or wake!’

And instant I sat upright for her sake,

And drank whatever wine she poured for me –

Wine of the tavern, or vintage it might be

Of Heaven’s own vine: he surely were a churl

Who refused wine poured out by such a girl,

A double traitor he to wine and love.

Go to, thou puritan! the gods above

Ordained this wine for us, but not for thee;

Drunkards we are by a divine decree,

Yea, by the special privilege of heaven

Foredoomed to drink and foreordained forgiven.

Ah! HAFIZ, you are not the only man

Who promised penitence and broke down after;

For who can keep so hard a promise, man,

With wine and woman brimming o’er with laughter!

O knotted locks, filled like a flower with scent,

How have you ravished this poor penitent!

Translation Richard Le Gallienne

Ode 487

With last night’s wine still singing in my head,

I sought the tavern at the break of day,

Though half the world was still asleep in bed;

The harp and flute were up and in full swing,

And a most pleasant morning sound made they;

Already was the wine-cup on the wing.

‘Reason,’ said I, ‘’t is past the time to start,

If you would reach your daily destination,

The holy city of intoxication.’

So did I pack him off, and he depart

With a stout flask for fellow-traveller.

Left to myself, the tavern-wench I spied,

And sought to win her love by speaking fair;

Alas! she turned upon me, scornful-eyed,

And mocked my foolish hopes of winning her.

Said she, her arching eyebrows like a bow:

‘Thou mark for all the shafts of evil tongues!

Thou shalt not round my middle clasp me so,

Like my good girdle – not for all thy songs! –

So long as thou in all created things

Seest but thyself the centre and the end.

Go spread thy dainty nets for other wings –

Too high the Anca’s nest for thee, my friend.’

Then took I shelter from that stormy sea

In the good ark of wine; yet, woe is me!

Saki and comrade and minstrel all by turns,

She is of maidens the compendium

Who my poor heart in such a fashion spurns.

Self, Hafiz, self! That thou must overcome!

Hearken the wisdom of the tavern-daughter!

Vain little baggage – well, upon my word!

Thou fairy figment made of clay and water,

As busy with thy beauty as a bird.

Well, Hafiz, Life’s a riddle – give it up:

There is no answer to it but this cup.

Translated By Richard Le Gallienne


The mountain got tired of sitting

The sun

Won a beauty contest and became a jewel

Set upon God’s right hand.

The earth agreed to be a toe ring on the

Beloved’s foot

And has never regretted its decision.

The mountains got tired

Of sitting amongst a sleeping audience

And are now stretching their arms

Toward the Roof.

The clouds gave my soul an idea

So I pawned my gills

And rose like a winged diamond

Ever trying to be near

More love, more love

Like you.

The Mountain got tired of sitting

Amongst a snoring crowd inside of me

And rose like a rip sun

Into my eye.

My soul gave my heart a brilliant idea

So Hafiz is rising like a

Winged diamond.


The God who only knows four words

Every child has known God,

Not the God of names,

Not the God of don'ts,

Not the God who ever does anything weird.

But the God who only knows four words

And keeps repeating them, saying:

"Come dance with Me."

Come dance.

/////////////////////////////////////


I sometimes forget

that I was created for Joy.

My mind is too busy.

My Heart is too heavy

for me to remember

that I have been

called to dance

the Sacred dance of life.

I was created to smile

To Love

To be lifted up

And to lift others up.

O’ Sacred One

Untangle my feet

from all that ensnares.

Free my soul.

That we might

Dance

and that our dancing

might be contagious.

Deepening The Wonder

Death is a favour to us,

But our scales have lost their balance.

The impermanence of the body

Should give us great clarity,

Deepening the wonder in our senses and eyes

Of this mysterious existence we share

And are surely just traveling through.

If I were in the Tavern tonight,

Hafiz would call for drinks

And as the Master poured, I would be reminded

That all I know of life and myself is that

We are just a mid-air flight of golden wine

Between His Pitcher and His Cup.

If I were in the Tavern tonight,

I would buy freely for everyone in this world

Because our marriage with the Cruel Beauty

Of time and space cannot endure very long.

Death is a favour to us,

But our minds have lost their balance.

The miraculous existence and impermanence of Form

Always makes the illuminated ones

Laugh and Sing.


Ghazal 1

Come, boy, and pass the wine around –

Love seemed a simple game

When I encountered it …. but then

The difficulties came!

In longing for the musky scent

The breeze brings from her hair,

Such blood wells up in lovers’ hearts,

Such suffering and despair….

What can ensure my happiness,

At love’s stage, in my heart?

When every instant now the bell

Cries: “Load up, to depart!”

And if the wine-seller says wine

Should dye your prayer mat … dye it!

Pilgrims should know each stage’s rule

And seek to satisfy it.

On this dark night, amidst these waves,

The whirlpool’s fearsome roar

What can they know of our distress

Who watch us from the shore?

In all I’ve done, I’ve pleased myself,

It’s ruined my good name –

The secret ’s out, and everywhere

Men talk about my shame.

Don’t hide from him you seek, Hafez;

You cannot hope to find

The One you’re looking for until

You leave the world behind.

Ghazal 2

I pine away. Sages, plead with God for my woe

Alas, my secret pain, the world is soon to know

Our bark has stranded; O gentle breeze, arise!

That we may visit the friend we so dearly prize

The ten-day favor of the sphere is a tale untrue

Friend! Goodness to friends is a trait to pursue!

Yester eve, in festivity, the bulbul tuned a song'

'Saki! Bring wine! Come to life! O drunken throng! '

Noble soul! God blessed you with rigor and grace

So, seek - at least - to cheer up this dervish's face

Peace in the two worlds, these remarks clearly show

'Love to every friend and civility to every foe.'

Upon the path of honor, denied was my range

Should you not approve it, seek my fate to change

That bitter wine known to the Sufi a sin to be

Tastes much sweeter than a maiden kiss to me

In times of distress, rejoice and trouble not to learn

This alchemy of life can beggar to Croesus turn

Be mild! Burn as a taper from jealousy overmuch

Adamant melts like wax under the beloved's touch

Alexander's mirror is the same wine bowl. Behold

Everything in Darab's kingdom reflected in its mold

Speakers of sweet Persian, the water of life dispense

Saki! Hasten and give this word to pious men of sense

Hafiz declined to don this wine-stained cowl

O upright Master! Hold us innocent of this foul

Ghazal 47

Whoever had found his way to the tavern’s block

Would have to be insane if on another door knock

Fate never crowned any with drunkenness, except

The one who considered this the highest luck.

Whoever finds his way into the tavern

From the bounty of the wine, temple’s secrets unlock.

He who read the secrets of this wine,

Found the secrets in the dust upon which we walk.

Only seek the obedience of the insane

In our creed, logic and sanity we mock.

My heart asked not for longevity of beauty

Because sadly this is the way of the clock.

From the pain of the fading morning star at dawn

I cried so much that I saw the moon, though Venus my eyes struck.

Who talks about the story of Hafiz and his cup?

Why would the king know where the policemen flock?

Praise the King who considers the nine heavens

A mere crevice in His courtly block.