Ode 9

O LOVE, if thou so cruel continuest to be,

Like other fool fanatics to the wilderness I 'll flee,

And live on roots, religious-mad, up in the lonely mountains;

My head turned with religion, the Religion, love, of Thee.

Wind of the East, to my gazelle I beg thee go and say:

Remember him who beats the air like a madman night and day,

A wild man in the desert drear, far from the pleas­ant fountains,

As bleak and homeless in his heart as the wind upon his way.

Ah! little sugar-seller, dost thou never one thought send

To this parrot of all eloquence, thy sugar-eating friend,

Or is the rose too deep in love with her own face and fashion,

A frenzied nightingale to heed, or to his song attend?

'T is goodness, O thou foolish-wise, and constancy, I heard,

Not trick and snare, that should attract the philo­sophic bird;

But no such reasons can I give for my own fatal passion—

By every heartless wile and lure has HAFIZ been en­snared.

How strange it is these moons of girls, slim as the cypress-tree,

So lovely and so pitiless and so untrue should be!

Ah! my own love, nought was left out from thine own finished fairness,

The little gift of being true—that only was denied thee.

HAFIZ, though she care not to hear—listen! what carest thou!

Zuhrah* is singing there in heaven to god and god­dess even now—

So sweet she sings, and O the songs they are of such a rareness,

Messiah's self is dancing as she singeth them, I vow.