Hafiz in London

by Justin H. McCarthy

YOU AND I.

Spare your censures, worthy friend, on my love of drinking;

Shut your senses, if you please, to the glasses clinking.

Only, while you rest with me, prithee keep your curses

For some other fellow’s wine, other fellow’s verses.

By what frenzy of reproof is your wisdom bitten?

Are the sins that I commit in your volume written?

If I run a tavern score, you don’t pay the reckoning;

If the Lotus-maiden nods, not to you she’s beckoning.