Ode 564

BRING wine into the garden, on the brink

Of the cool fountain set the pillows so:

Roses to scatter, and red wine to drink—

I do not know

If there be more to ask. What dost thou think?

Thus to the nightingale the young rose spake,

And thus the nightingale made answer meet:

O little rose-tree, tell me for whose sake

Thou smellest so sweet?

Who from thy bough shall all these blossoms shake?

Walk in the garden, that the cypress may

Learn from the box-tree of thy perfect grace

In the wind's arms voluptuously to sway;

O little face,

Why didst thou steal a great man's heart away!

Rosebud—thou art too young to call a rose!—

I would, while yet the merchants throng to buy,

Thou madest provision, ere thy beauty goes;

Yea! ere it die

Gather thy pennies, sweetheart—HAFIZ knows!

Hast seen a candle in the way of the wind?

Beauty is so before the breath of time;

If only thou couldst be a little kind,

Sweet were this rhyme

As all that musk of China—thy locks untwined.

All birds in the rose-garden of the king

Come singing—each one hath a different tale:

HAFIZ, what song is it that thou dost sing,

Dread nightingale?

HAFIZ hath nothing but a prayer to bring.