Ode 364

THIS moment on the air strange sweetness came,

From the Beloved a faint far-travelled balm,

And the wide summer midnight sleeping calm

Opened in one deep hall of sudden flame;

Alight an instant each slow-moving mile,

Distance leapt into daylight and was gone,

And for an instant, fleeting as her smile,

I saw the camels slowly moving on.

Unload, O camel-drivers, your rich freight,

Your costly spices and Arabian gums;

The North Wind surely tells me that she comes—

Nor body nor soul can any longer wait.

Ah! summer lightning, plainly you foretell

That summer of the soul when there shall leap

Lightning from heart to heart, and all be well

Down in the silence of the soul's great deep.

Be not impatient, heart, nor more complain,

For the Beloved that was so long away

To you and pleasant Shiraz comes again

With wonder at the dawning of the day.

Come, for the seven rainbows of my eye

Are red with tears of blood because of thee—

The rose's colour and the heart's own dye;

Hung with my tears as with a tapestry

The work-shop of fair sight—thy holy place.

Come, for my famished heart's one aching thought

Is of that fabled mouth that in thy face

Mathematicians would define as nought,

That seed-pearl of invisibility—

Think of a man who spends his life in vain

Seeking a mouth too small for him to see:

Will the wide world see such a fool again!

HAFIZ, the loved one's yoke is hard to bear,

And none there is thy great love to console;

Is HAFIZ never angry then with her?

Is a man angry with his very soul?

For love of thee, HAFIZ is surely dead;

Yet fear thou not to come anigh his grave;

Lawful it was in thee his blood to shed;

Read thou his epitaph: HAFIZ FORGAVE.