Ghazal 161

When can moist verse be stirred by a mind that is sorrowful?

We said one point of this meaning, and that is all.

If I obtain from your ruby lip a ring of protection,

a hundred kingdoms of Solomon will be beneath my seal.

Do not be grieved by the taunts of the envious, O heart —

it may be that when you look closely, your good lies in this.

Whoever does not understand this imagination-stirring pen —

his image is worthless, even if he be the portrait-painter of China.

The cup of wine and the heart's blood — each was given to someone —

in the circle of destiny, arrangements are thus.

In the affair of rosewater and rose, the eternal decree was this:

that one should be the beauty of the marketplace, and the other behind the veil.

It is not that the rend's way has left the mind of Hafez —

for this precedent from the beginning will last until the final day.