For a long time you have tied us up with expectation;
Why confuse the sincere with someone else’s condition?
You have not looked at me with the eye of approval;
Is this how you regard those devoted to the spiritual?
Since the dawn breeze sang a page of your beauty to rose and bird,
Only clamoring and cry and tearing of shirt has been heard.
For Vanity’s sake, best that you cover your arm and wrist,
As you dip your brush in the blood of your loving subject.
O dervish in brightly patched coat who seeks to taste Presence:
Strange, that you eye secrets from those learned in nonsense!
O eye and lamp, since you are the narcissus of vision’s garden,
Why hold your head heavy around me, the heart-broken?
The jewel from Jamshid’s Cup is mined from a different world;
Why do you search for it in the potter’s jug of clay, instead?
Although Rendi and drink define all our sin precisely,
The lover cries- none but you has brought about our slavery!
Hafez, do not give up your days of peace in self-reproach:
What hope can you have of this world so full of “such and such”.
