Ghazal 255

The lost Joseph will return to Canaan — grieve not.

The house of sorrows will one day become a garden — grieve not.

O grief-stricken heart, your state will improve — do not despair,

and this troubled head will come to order — grieve not.

If the spring of life returns once more to the meadow's throne,

you will draw the canopy of the rose over your head, O sweet-singing bird — grieve not.

If the turning sky does not go our way for a day or two,

the state of the world is not forever the same — grieve not.

Beware — do not despair, for you are not aware of the hidden secret:

there may be plays behind the curtain — grieve not.

O heart, if the flood of annihilation uproots the foundation of being,

since Noah is your helmsman, do not grieve at the storm.

In the desert, if you wish to take a step toward the Kaaba with longing,

if the thorns of the path reproach you — grieve not.

Though the way-station is most perilous and the goal most distant,

there is no road that has no end — grieve not.

Our state in separation from the beloved and the insistence of the rival —

God, the Transformer of states, knows it all — grieve not.

Hafez, in the corner of poverty and the solitude of dark nights,

as long as your litany is prayer and the lesson of the Quran — grieve not.