Blooms a tribe of laughing lilies fairer than a kingly crown.
Every lily in the garden wears a woman’s gracious name,
Every lily in the garden set my spirit once aflame;
And amongst that throng of lilies scarcely whiter than his hair,
Hafiz sits and dreams at sunset of the flowers no longer fair;
Of the sweethearts dead and buried whom I worshipped long ago,
When this beard as grey as ashes was as sable as the sloe.
I would weep if I were wiser, but the idle child of song
Leaves reflection to the Mullah, sorrow to the Sufi throng.
Am I wrong to be contented in the sunlight to rehearse