"Not in their houses stand the stars,
But o'er the pinnacles of thine!"
"From thy worth and weight the stars
gravitate,
And the equipoise of heaven is thy house's
equipoise!"
It is told of Hafiz, that, when he had written a compliment to a handsome youth,—
"Take my heart in thy hand, O beautiful boy
of Schiraz!
I would give for the mole on thy cheek Samarcand
and Buchara!"—
the verses came to the ears of Timour in his palace. Timour taxed Hafiz with treating disrespectfully his two cities, to raise and adorn which he had conquered nations. Hafiz replied, "Alas, my lord, if I had not been so prodigal, I had not been so poor!"
The Persians had a mode of establishing copyright the most secure of any contrivance with which we are acquainted. The law of the ghaselle, or shorter ode, requires that the poet insert his name in the last stanza. Almost every one of several hundreds of poems of Hafiz contains his name thus interwoven more or less closely with the subject of the piece. It is itself a test of skill, as this self-naming is not quite easy. We remember but two or three examples in English poetry: that of Chaucer, in the "House of Fame"; Jonson's epitaph on his son,—
"Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry";
and Cowley's,—
"The melancholy Cowley lay."
But it is easy to Hafiz. It gives him the opportunity of the most playful self-assertion, always gracefully, sometimes almost in the fun of Falstaff, sometimes with feminine delicacy. He tells us, "The angels in heaven were lately learning his last pieces." He says, "The fishes shed their pearls, out of desire and longing, as soon as the ship of Hafiz swims the deep."