Ode 109

BELOVED, it is not for you to question the words of the wise,

To say “Such and such is not so,” or “It seems not good in my eyes”;

Attend to your beauty, Beloved: 't is there that your business lies.

To neither this world nor the next will I bow down this dream-filled head—

Ah, blessed be heaven that it put such dreams, such dreams, in my head!

But my heart—ah, what of my heart and its agony shall be said!

What is it inside my sad heart that cries out night and day?

It is not the voice of my soul—that hath never a word to say;

But something laments in my heart in a tossed tempestuous way.

I will suffer this pain no more, the veil of my patience is rent;

Ho! minstrel, thy melody bring, the heart's own medicament;

Yea, heal up my heart with the sound of some musical instrument.

Never that sad heart was set on the wealth of the world and its ways;

One thing have I asked of this life—to look day and night in your face;

My wealth was the thought of you, and my fame was the hope of your praise.

But now for a hundred nights my good sleep is all stolen from me;

In dreams I can find you no more, nor yet even the wine-house see;

Bismillah! of wine and wine-house should I ever forsaken be!

The tavern does me much honour because of my heart on fire;

What was it the minstrel played me last night on his sobbing lyre?

The world passed away as he played; 't was the voice of my heart's desire.

Its echoes still haunt with their sweetness the deeps of my dreaming brain;

Like the ache of wine in the heart is that aching half-lost refrain;

O mountainous heart of HAFIZ, that a song should rend thee in twain!