“They strew in the paths of kings and czars
Jewels and gems of price:
But for thy head I will pluck down stars,
And pave thy way with eyes.
“I have sought for thee a costlier dome
Than Mahmoud’s palace high,
And thou, returning, find thy home
In the apple of Love’s eye.”
Then we have all degrees of passionate abandonment:—
“I know this perilous love-lane
No whither the traveller leads,
Yet my fancy the sweet scent of
Thy tangled tresses feeds.
“In the midnight of thy locks,
I renounce the day;
In the ring of thy rose-lips,
My heart forgets to pray.”
And sometimes his love rises to a religious sentiment:—
“Plunge in your angry waves,
Renouncing doubt and care;
The flowing of the seven broad seas
Shall never wet thy hair.
“Is Allah’s face on thee
Bending with love benign,
And thou not less on Allah’s eye,
O fairest turnest thine.”
We add to these fragments of Hafiz a few specimens from other poets.