Ghazal 39

What need has my garden of cypress and pine?

Our own home-raised boxwood — is it less than any?

O graceful youth, what creed have you taken up,

that our blood is more lawful to you than mother’s milk?

When you see the image of grief from afar, call for wine —

we have diagnosed the case, and the remedy is certain.

Why should we withdraw our head from the Magian elder’s threshold?

Fortune dwells in that house, and deliverance at that door.

The grief of love is but a single tale, and yet how strange —

from every tongue I hear it, it sounds unrepeated.

Yesterday she promised union, with wine in her head —

today let us see what she says, and what is on her mind.

Shiraz, and the water of Ruknabad, and this sweet-scented breeze —

do not fault it, for it is the beauty mark on the cheek of seven lands.

There is a difference between the Water of Khizr, whose place is in darkness,

and our water, whose source is — God is great!

We will not sell the honor of poverty and contentment —

tell the king that our sustenance is foreordained.

Hafez, what a wondrous branch of sugar-cane is your pen,

whose fruit is sweeter to the heart than honey and sugar.