Ode 83

1

O LOVE, all hidden from my aching sight,

May God have care of thee!

I miss thee all the day and all the night,

Yet is my heart with thee.

Until my grave-clothes drag in the grave's dust,

My hand to touch thy healing hem I must

Stretch out, beloved, to thee—

The healing hem of thee.

O show me the prayer-arches of thy brows,

That I may raise my hand as in God's house

And clasp the neck of thee.

Yea! if it needs must be that I must stand

Head-down in the burning Babylonian sand,

Like the lost angel Harut, thou shalt see

What sorceries I 'll think of to bring thee.

Love, if for nothing else, grant me this grace—

See how I ask it on this faithful knee!—

That just a little moment we may meet:

So may I look once more upon thy face,

And break my heart in tears upon thy feet,

Big tears for me—and thee.

2

My bosom is a watershed of tears,

All for the love of thee;

A hundred sobbing rivers take their rise

Within the brimming springs of my sad eyes,

And all for love of thee.

Would that the desperate stream on thy heart's shore

Might plant this seed I send of love—for thee,

And, waxing more and more,

If there might shoot

A million leaves from out that mighty root,

To show my love for thee:

O love, come plant the tree—

The love of me and thee.

3

Love, thou hast stabbed me with thy dagger eyes,

There is no hope for me;

Bleeding in death, I for the doctor send—

Doctor and murderer—thee.

O faithless doctor, do not seek to cure

This hopeless case of me:

Go heal some other patient; all I ask

Is just to die—for thee.

If in my eyes is any other face,

O if my heart can hold one more desire

Than face and love of thee,

Pluck out my eyes, and may the eternal fire

Burn to white ash the faithless heart of me,

Faithless, O lovely one, to such a face,

Faithless, O love, to thee.

Ah! HAFIZ, HAFIZ! wine and woman and song!

Is this thy love for me?

Well, well, dear profligate, do what thou wilt,

I needs must pardon—thee.