To Hafiz of Shiraz

Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, by Getrude Lowthian Bell, [1897], at sacred-texts.com

Thus said the Poet: "When Death comes to you,
All ye whose life-sand through the hour-glass slips,
He lays two fingers on your ears, and two
Upon your eyes he lays, one on your lips,
Whispering: Silence!" Although deaf thine ear,
Thine eye, my Hafiz, suffer Time's eclipse,
The songs thou sangest still all men may hear.

Songs of dead laughter, songs of love once hot,
Songs of a cup once flushed rose-red with wine,
Songs of a rose whose beauty is forgot,
A nightingale that piped hushed lays divine:
And still a graver music runs beneath
The tender love notes of those songs of thine,
Oh, Seeker of the keys of Life and Death!

While thou wert singing, the soft summer wind
That o’er Mosalla's garden blew, the stream
Of Ruknabad flowing where roses twined,
Carried thy voice farther than thou could’st dream.
To Isfahan and Baghdad's Tartar horde,
O’er waste and sea to Yezd and distant Ind;
Yea, to the sun-setting they bore thy word.

Behold we laugh, we warm us at Love's fire,
We thirst and scarce dare tell what wine we crave,
We lift our voices in Grief's dark-robed choir;
Sing thou the wisdom joy and sorrow gave!
If my poor rhymes held aught of the heart's lore,
Fresh wreaths were theirs to lay upon thy grave—
Master and Poet, all was thine before!