Ode 542

O SHIRAZ City, filled with lovely faces,

The beauty of the land,

If love you seek, and the Beloved's embraces,

Just wave your hand.

You will not find a maid fairer or fonder

Shining on mortal air,

Or wilder bird than that freebooter yonder

Fall to your snare.

Maiden unspotted, art thou really human?

Is that an earthly mole?

Never seemed mortal body of a woman

So like a soul.

2

Burning coal of beauty, break not the broken:

Only one kiss give me—

That is all I ask; would I had not spoken

My heart to thee.

Pure is the wine, and May, the month of playtime,

Fills the soft air with song;

No one is certain of another Maytime,

Not even the young.

There in the garden hear the topers laughing;

Mark how the wine-jar flows;

A flaming tulip the wine they are quaffing,

A burning rose.

Love is a mystery past my unwinding,

Bitter and hard and sore;

Is there no hope a way, HAFIZ, of finding

To love no more?

HAFIZ, alas! every hair he possesses

Twines in some wanton's curls;

There 's not a hair in all his laureate tresses

But is some girl's.