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!

From: “I Heard God Laughing:

Renderings of Hafiz: by Daniel Ladinsky.

Light of mine eyes and harvest of my heart,
And mine at least in changeless memory!
Ah, when he found it easy to depart,
He left the harder pilgrimage to me!
Oh Camel-driver, though the cordage start,
For God’s sake help me lift my fallen load,
And Pity be my comrade of the road!

My face is seamed with dust, mine eyes are wet.
Of dust and tears the turquoise firmament
Kneadeth the bricks for joy’s abode; and yet . . .
Alas, and weeping yet I make lament!
Because the moon her jealous glances set
Upon the bow-bent eyebrows of my moon,
He sought a lodging in the grave-too soon!

I had not castled, and the time is gone.
What shall I play? Upon the chequered floor
Of Night and Day, Death won the game-forlorn
And careless now, Hafiz can lose no more.

By: Hafiz

Translated by Gertrude Bell 1897

And lips like to sugar, grace like a flower that sways,
Are nought without kisses many and dalliance sweet;
If thousands of voices sang not the rose’s praise,
The joy of the cypress her opening bud to greet,
Nor dancing of boughs nor blossoming rose were fair.

Though limned by most skilful fingers, no pictures please
Unless the beloved’s image is drawn therein;
The garden and flowers, and hair flowing loose on the breeze,
Unless to my Lady’s side I may strive and win,
Nor garden, nor flowers, nor loose flying curls are fair.

Hast seen at a marriage-feast, when the mirth runs high,
The revellers scatter gold with a careless hand?
The gold of thy heart, oh Hafiz, despised doth lie,
Not worthy thy love to be cast by a drunken band
At the feet of her who is fairer than all that’s fair.

-

Hafiz

From: Teachings of Hafiz

Translated by Gertrude Bell 1897

The bright moon reflects your radiant face
Your snowcapped cheekbones supply water of grace
My heavy heart desires an audience with your face
Come forward or must return, your command I will embrace.

Nobody for good measures girded your fields
Such trades no one in their right mind would chase.
Our dormant fate will never awake, unless
You wash its face and shout brace, brace!

Send a bouquet of your face with morning breeze
Perhaps inhaling your scent, your fields we envision & trace.
May you live fulfilled and long, O wine-bearer of this feast
Though our cup was never filled from your jug or your vase.

My heart is reckless, please, let Beloved know
Beware my friend, my soul your soul replace.
O God, when will my fate and desires hand in hand
Bring me to my Beloved hair, in one place?

Step above the ground, when you decide to pass us by
On this path lie bloody, the martyrs of human race.
Hafiz says a prayer, listen, and say amen
May your sweet wine daily pour upon my lips and my face.

O breeze tell us about the inhabitants of city of Yazd
May the heads of unworthy roll as a ball in your polo race.
Though we are far from friends, kinship is near
We praise your goodness and majestic mace.

O Majesty, may we be touched by your grace
I kiss and touch the ground that is your base.

From Hafiz on Love

Shahriar Shahriari

None now sayeth: “A love was mine,
Loyal and wise, to dispel my care.”
None remembers love’s right divine;
What has befallen all lovers fair?
In the midst of the field, to the players’ feet,
The ball of God’s favour and mercy came,
But none has leapt forth to renew the game–
What has befallen the horsemen fleet?

Roses have bloomed, yet no bird rejoiced,
No vibrating throat has rung with the tale;
What can have silenced the hundred-voiced?
What has befallen the nightingale?
Heaven’s music is hushed, and the planets roll
In silence; has Zohra broken her lute?
There is none to press out the vine’s ripe fruit,
And what has befallen the foaming bowl?

A city where kings are but lovers crowned,
A land from the dust of which friendship springs–
Who has laid waste that enchanted ground?
What has befallen the city of kings?
Years have passed since a ruby was won
From the mine of manhood; they labour in vain,
The fleet-footed wind and the quickening rain,
And what has befallen the light of the sun?

Hafiz, the secret of God’s dread task
No man knoweth, in youth or prime
Or in wisest age; of whom would’st thou ask:
What has befallen the wheels of Time?

- Hafiz

- Trans G. Bell (1897)

There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.

In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That “love” is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that.

- Hafiz

From “The Gift”: Version by Daniel Ladinsky.

I’ve taken off my snazzy blue coat and bare-chested
I clutch this full cup.

Even though the rich or the politicians call us “trash,”
To us their blue blood or fame means nothing.

Give me more wine! All their dust blowing around in the wind of pride
And desire is as worthless as a hole.

The smoke from my burning heart
Gags all those with ignorance as their goal.

My mad heart has a secret
That no one knows.

The Beloved has stolen even the sweet solitude from my heart,
And I am content.

No one who has ever laid eyes on this silver-limbed Cypress,
Would ever go looking in the woods for a cypress again.

“Hafez,” the voice of inner wine will say;
“Be careful what you ask for, you may just get what you want!”

- Hafiz
- Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe

The wind itself bore joy to Solomon;
The Lapwing flew from Sheba’s garden close,
Bringing good tidings of its queen and rose.
Take thou the cup and go where meadows span
The plain, whither the bird with tuneful throat
Has brought Spring’s sweeter note.

Welcome, oh rose, and full-blown eglantine!
The violets their scented gladness fling,
Jasmin breathes purity-art sorrowing
Like an unopened bud, oh heart of mine?
The wind of dawn that sets closed blossoms free
Brings its warm airs to thee.

Saki, thy kiss shall still my bitter cry!
Lift up your grief-bowed heads, all ye that weep,
The Healer brings joy’s wine-cup–oh, drink deep!
Disciple of the Tavern-priest am I;
The pious Sheikh may promise future bliss,
He brings me where joy is.

The greedy glances of a Tartar horde
To me seemed kind–my foeman spared me not
Though one poor robe was all that I had got.
But Heaven served Hafiz, as a slave his lord,
And when he fled through regions desolate,
Heaven brought him to thy gate.

- Hafiz

Translated by Gertrude Bell 1897