Ode 150

HAFIZ had once a heart, Muslims, like you;

A pitiful good heart, a comrade true,

A counsellor, and a most faithful friend.

Skilful it was to aid and to advise,

Shelter and succour, and exceeding wise

The broken hearts of other folk to mend.

So, when I fell into Love's whirling pool,

Through the ensorcelled folly of my eye,

Upon my faithful heart did I rely

To snatch me back to shore. Alas! poor fool,

My heart had lost himself as well as I.

The Street of my Beloved—it was there

I lost my friend: O perilous thoroughfare!

Most dangerous is my Beloved's Street,

And most detaining to the robe of man.

O maze of honeycomb! O heavenly hive!

Wildered, I wander on with tangled feet,

Seeking my heart in the Beloved's Street;

But find again my friend I never can.

Would I had pearls for every tear I shed!

Sometimes I wonder if he is alive,

And sometimes shudder lest he should be dead;

O never was a harder case than mine.

Have pity, people! Honoured once and wise,

Before he drank of passion's fatal wine,

Was he who comes now in this beggar's guise;

So sweet the songs of HAFIZ used to be,

Ere my Beloved took my heart from me,

That multitudes would hold their breath to hear,

As at the singing of some heavenly bird.

Perchance of HAFIZ ye have sometimes heard

As of a man honoured in all the schools,

A man of sense, and of a judgment clear;

Believe it not—he is the king of fools.