With lovely Lailī was it well,
When last you passed the maiden by,
Of wayward will and witching eye?
Why, Hāfiz, when you feared the day
That tore you from her arms away,
Oh why so thankless for the hours
You passed in Lailī’s lovely bowers?”
In his youth Hāfiz sang freely of love and wine, and his verse upon these themes too often betrayed a coarse sentiment, for it seems impossible for some bards to appreciate the perfect purity of honest affection. Of his love songs the following is the best:
THE FEAST OF SPRING.
“My breast is filled with roses,