”And then You are like this:
A small bird decorated
With orange patches of light
Waving your wings near my window,
Encouraging me with all of existence's love-
To dance.
And then You are like this:
A cruel word that stabs me
From the mouth of a strange costume You wear;
A guise You had too long tricked me into thinking
Could be other-than You.
And then You are ...
The firmament
That spins at the end of a string in Your hand
That You offer to mine saying,
"Did you drop this-surely
This is yours."
And then You are, 0 then You are:
The Beloved of every creature
Revealed with such grandeur-bursting
From each cell in my body,
I kneel, I laugh,
I weep, I sing,
I sing.”
“Come,
let's scatter roses and pour wine in the glass;
we'll shatter heaven's roof and lay a new foundation.
If sorrow raises armies to shed the blood of lovers,
I'll join with the wine bearer so we can overthrow them.
With a sweet string at hand, play a sweet song, my friend,
so we can clap and sing a song and lose our heads in dancing.”
“Dear ones,
Beware of the tiny gods frightened men
Create
To bring an anesthetic relief
To their sad
Days.”
“Good poetry
Makes a beautiful naked woman
Materialize from
Words,
Who then says,
With a sword precariously waving
In her hands,
"If you look at my loins
I will cut off your head,
And reach down and grab your spirit
By its private parts,
And carry you off to heaven
Squealing in joy."
Hafiz says,
"That sounds wonderful, just
Wonderful.
Someone please - start writing
Some great
Lines."”
“How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its
Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened.”
“I am drunk with Love, bearer, bring me some wine
This feast without a full jug, will run down and decline.
Describing that beauty, neither seems right and nor fair,
Musicians play on, and wine-bearer bring me wine.
My stature is now curved, and your rivals from now on
Won't tempt me through this door, with no other will align.
In my longings for Thy face, I, and hopeful desires,
In hope of union, I, fancy, and dream combine.
Intoxicated with those eyes, where do I find my cup?
Lovesick with vision of those lips, of answers there's no sign.
Hafiz, in search of the good, why put your heart on the line?
How can you quench one's thirst, through a mirage that may shine?”
”I am full of love tonight
Come look into my eyes, and let's go off
Sailing, my dear, on a long ocean ride.
This world will not touch you,
I will keep you snug upon my seat.
Let's plot
To make the moon jealous
With a radiance leaping from your cheek.
I will be full of love tonight,
Come look into these ancient eyes!
And let's go off sailing, my dear,
With our spirits intertwined.
Your body is just an old sandbar
In a speeding hourglass of time.
Love will turn the mouth of sorrow
Right side up.
Let your heart commence its destined
Laughing chime!
Hafiz will be brimful of love tonight,
Why ever be shy?
Come look into the playful eyes of my verse,
They are eternally branded,
Branded with
The Sun!”
”If love leads me to a musky, thick wine,
it must be what I need, not some austere hypocrisy.
If everyone in the world
advised against my loving you
still I would.
One lives in the zikr circle
so that the round knot in the Beloved's hair
will be undone.
The beautiful bride of the world approaches,
but not to marry anyone!
Watch. One bride leaves,
as another comes.
The cypress, the tulip,
a line of gowns.
We are beggars here,
but don't ask what we're begging for!
Whatever it is shows in our faces.
So I said to tease the beauty, "My moon, if we kissed,
could I endure the love?"
"Hafiz," she laughed, "kiss on!
Your lips won't stain the moon."
”In the garden at dawn I sought for a rose
when nightingale's voice broke the peace with her prose.
Like me, she was mad for love of a flower
and woke up the garden by trilling her woes,
I strolled round the garden moment by moment,
eyeing songbird's affair with flower she chose.
Sweet flower did swoon while the nightingale wooed;
this one's yet to age, that one's caught in love's throes.
As nightingale's song penetrated my heart,
it erased all desires my mind could compose.
In garden where so many roses abound,
to pick even one is to learn where thorn grows.
Hafez seek no comfort from life's wheel turning,
for its one thousand squeaks create no repose.”
”Into the mirror of my cup the reflection of your glorious face fell
And from the gentle laughter of love, into a drunken state of longing I fell
Struck with wonder by the beauty of the picture that within my cup I beheld
The picture of this world of illusion from the reflection of my mind fell
Beneath the sword of grief of love for you
there lies a joy no tongue can tell
For that one who was slain by you
found happiness the instant the axe fell
From the house of prayer into the house of drink I fell not of myself
From eternity it was meant to be you came to me and into drunkenness I fell
From the beginningless beginning beneath the veil your face was hidden well
but upon those with love and wisdom a ray from your most glorious face fell
All this world, reflected wonder, wine and love and song, in which we dwell
Is nothing but a fragment of the one whose reflection into my cup fell
With a loving eye and pure vision
the holy pilgrim saw your face so well
but he whose eye was clouded with thought saw you not
and into earthly desire fell
The holy ones who quote the scripture have seen your face and possess some of
your wealth
But heartbroken and destitute, from their midst, into disrepute, Hafiz fell.”
““I say, "I think of you."
You say, "Not for long."
I say "Be my moon."
You say, "But only when it's full."
I say, "Learn faithfulness from the kind."
You say, "There is no such thing with the beautiful."
I say, "I'll block the gates to your imagination. "
You say, "It travels at night; it will find another way."
I say, "I'm lost in the smell of your hair."
You say, "You could've traced it to its source."
I say, "How delightful the morning breeze!"
You say, "Better yet the zephyr from the lover's side."
I say, "To drink from your crimson lips nearly killed me."
You say, "Bow down, my slave!"
I say, "When will you decide on peace?"
You say, "Hush, so its time will come."
I say, "O, it's all over."
You say, "Quiet, Hafez, your sorrow won't last."”
“I speak frankly and that makes me happy:
I am the slave of love, I am free of both worlds.
I am a bird from heaven's garden. How do I describe that separation,
my fall into this snare of accidents?
I was an angel and highest paradise was my place.
Adam brought me to this monastery in the city of ruin.
The hours' caress, the pool and shade trees of paradise
were forgotten in the breeze from your alleyway.
There is nothing on the tablet of my heart but my love's tall alif.
What can I do? My master taught me no other letter.
No astrologer knew the constellations of my fate.
O lord, when I was born of mother earth which stars were rising?
Ever since I became a slave at the door of love's tavern
sorrows come to me each moment with congratulations.
The pupil of my eye drains the blood from my heart.
I deserve it. Why did I give my heart to the darling of others?
Wipe the tears from Hafiz's face with soft curls
or else this endless torrent will uproot me.”
“Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.”
“Love’s slave am I, and from both worlds free.”
“One regret, dear world,
That I am determined not to have
When I am lying on my deathbed
Is that I did not kiss you enough."
“Only
That Illumined
One
Who keeps
Seducing the formless into form
Has the charm to win my
Heart.
Only a Perfect One
Who is always
Laughing at the word
Two
Can make you know
Of
Love.”
"Oh, you who are trying to learn the marvel of Love through the copy book of Reason, I'm very much afraid you will never really see the point."
”O keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions' beautiful laughter
And from the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.
Now, sweet one,
Be wise.
Cast all your votes for Dancing!”
“The chemist of love
Will this perishing mould,
Were it made out of mire,
Transmute into gold.”
”Love
Is the great work
Though every heart is first an
Apprentice
That slaves beneath the city of Light.
This wondrous trade,
This magnificent throne your soul
Is destined for-
You should not have to think
Much about it,
Is it not clear
An apprentice needs a teacher
Who himself
Has charmed the universe
To reveal its wonders inside his cup.
Happiness is the great work,
Though every heart must first become
A student
To one
Who really knows
About Love.”
“THE jewel of the secret treasury
Is still the same as once it was; the seal
Upon Love's treasure casket, and the key,
Are still what thieves can neither break nor steal;
Still among lovers loyalty is found,
And therefore faithful eyes still strew the ground
With the same pearls that mine once strewed for thee.
Question the wandering winds and thou shalt know
That from the dusk until the dawn doth break,
My consolation is that still they blow
The perfume of thy curls across my cheek.
A dart from thy bent brows has wounded me--
Ah, come! my heart still waiteth helplessly,
Has waited ever, till thou heal its pain.
If seekers after rubies there were none,
Still to the dark mines where the gems had lain
Would pierce, as he was wont, the radiant sun,
Setting the stones ablaze. Would'st hide the stain
Of my heart's blood? Blood-red the ruby glows
(And whence it came my wounded bosom knows)
Upon thy lips to show what thou hast done.
Let not thy curls waylay my pilgrim soul,
As robbers use, and plunder me no more!
Years join dead year, but thine extortionate rule
Is still the same, merciless as before.
Sing, Hafiz, sing again of eyes that weep!
For still the fountain of our tears is deep
As once it was, and still with tears is full.”
There are so many positions of love:
each curve on a
branch,
the thousand ways your eyes can hold us,
the infinite shapes each mind
can draw,
the spring orchestra of scents and sounds wafting through the air,
the currents of light combusting like
passionate lips,
the revolution of the universe's skirt, whose folds
contain other worlds,
our every sigh that falls against
His inconceivably close,
omnipresent,
divine
body.
”This morning I went into the rose garden seeking nectar
As a cure-all for my love-sick brain.
Even on this dark night, the red rose I found
Lit up the garden like a lamp.
The light from the rose was so bright it woke the nightingale,
And it began singing one of its thousand songs.
The nightingale's song was so sweet that the narcissus began to cry,
And the tulip drank the narcissus's tears in passion and in pain.
To show her disapproval, the lily stuck out her tongue like a sword,
And, like a bigamist's wife, the anemone opened up her mouth to tell
the world of her travails.
0 gardeners, if you are holding a winejug in your hand, you
Are nothing but a drunk. Be like the Winebringer and wrap your hands
around a glass.
Hafiz, learn from the flowers and the Gardener the difference between
Pleasure and joy. And remember: there would be no messenger if there
had been no message sent today.”
”You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare -
Don't mix them!
You have all the genius
To build a swing in your backyard
For God.
That sounds
Like a lot more fun.
Let's start laughing, drawing blueprints,
Gathering talented friends.
I will help you
With my divine lyre and drum.
Hafiz
Will sing a thousand words
You can take into your hands,
Like golden saws,
Silver hammers.
Polished teakwood,
Strong silk rope.
You carry all the ingredients
To turn your existence into joy,
Mix them, mix
Them!”
