Ode 331

FOR all her cruel grown-up ways,

My love as yet is but a child;

She counts but fourteen little years

That hath this famous heart beguiled,

And all these salt and sounding tears—

I shed them for a child.

A child that knows not wrong from right,

A baby fallen from the moon;

Pity she knows not yet, nor love—

Pray God she knows them soon!

Else will she slay me some fine day

In childish innocence of sport,

And be acquitted for the sin

By the most learned court—

For she as yet is but a child.

Her heart still sleeps; still sleeps her mind;

Nor false from true, noble from base,

Can she distinguish or divide;

All of her sleeps—except her face.

Yea! she I love is such a child,

For all her beauty slim and silk,

That still there lingers on her lips

The sweetness of her mother's milk.

Ah! idol—with your fourteen years,

And all your young alluring grace,

HAFIZ were wise to hide his heart

Away in some safe place.

Alas! already 't is too late—

My heart is lost this many a day:

After the newly opened rose

That nightingale has flown away.

If she I love breaks hearts like this,

Thus vanquishes strong men and hard,

The Sultan would be well advised

To make her Captain of his guard;

For such a might is in her eyes

To break the strong and curb the wild:

One look—and you shall bleed to death!—

And she as yet is but a child.