Ode 131

IN the Beloved's path I laid my face,

Yea! in the very dust of the highway

Bowed I my head—hoping a little grace;

But she passed on her light indifferent way,

Nor even deigned to notice where I lay.

God pardon her—she hath a lovely face.

God guard the careless creature from the sigh

That broke unwilling from a bosom torn

With grief of her intolerable scorn.

I had no other purpose but to die,

Like an expended taper that at morn

Is blown out by a zephyr's passing by.

O very hard the heart of my beloved—

Hard as a rock on which the bitter rain

Beats, yet remains unmelted and unmoved;

O torrents of my tears! 't was all in vain.

Ah! all in vain the tears of the unloved,

And all unheeded all his lonely pain.

Last night so very bitterly I wept,

All living things slept not for sympathy;

The very birds and fishes vigil kept;

Awake was the wide world—save only she:

Ah! she alone it was that soundly slept—

Though all the world was sitting up with me.

To the sad rain-song, HAFIZ, of your tears

Shut the Beloved's heart, and shut her ears;

But, HAFIZ, sing your happy songs instead,

And she would rise, to listen, from the dead;

Songs as wild honey sweet, that whoso hears

Sings each word over and over in his heart,

Lest he should lose of it the smallest part.