Ode 39

PREACHER, 't is all in vain you preach to me,

Nor business of anyone's but mine

Where I have sinned and what my end will be.

I ponder too on subtleties divine—

Pray solve me this: how Allah out of nought

The waist of my Beloved made so fine

That it exists but in the lover's thought,

Nor can be apprehended of the eye,

A metaphysic fancy of the mind—

Solve me this riddle, preacher, how and why.

Again, you promise, when we leave behind

This jasmined earth, its roses and its dew,

Eight paradises up there in the sky;

I' faith, it makes a man in haste to die

To think of living after death with you!

Listen! one corner of the earth with her

Is more to me than all the stars on high;

Down here 's my heaven, though yours may be up there!

What if to ruin all my life has gone?

Upon that very ruin do I rear

This building of my dreams, and very fair

Is it to dwell in and to look upon—

This tavern-temple of the Thought of Her.

And, if to you my fate should seem unkind,

Unjust my love, and oft-times harsh to me,

It is enough that she it was designed

This exquisite anguish of my destiny.

HAFIZ is but a pipe for her to play;

So that he feels the sweetness of her breath

Through all his being take its thrilling way,

He heedeth not what any preacher saith;

And only when she takes her lips away

Shall HAFIZ taste the bitterness of death.