غزل شمارهٔ 286

Last night, to me, a mystery-knower, keen of sense, secretly spake, Saying : " Concealed from thee, one cannot hold the mystery of the wine-seller."

He said : " To thyself, action easy take. For, from nature's way, " On men hard-striving, hard the world seizeth."

Then, me, he gave a cup, from whose splendour on the heavens, To dancing came Zuhra ; and the lute-striker (player) kept saying : " Drink ! "

With the bloody (wounded) heart, bring forth (display) the laughing lip like the cup (laughing with wine's sparkle) : " If, thee, a (cleaving) wound reach, like the (shrieking) reed, into clamour (of grief), come thou not.

" So long as, with this screen (of mystery), thou becomest not acquainted, a hint thou hearest not : " Not the place for Jibra,il's message, is the ear of the unprivileged.

" O son ! counsel, hear, grief for the world's sake, suffer not : " To thee, a tale, I utter (lustrous) as a pearl ; if thou canst, hear."

" In love's fold, of talking and of hearing one cannot boast : " For, there, eye and ear, must be all thy limbs.

" On the carpet (stage) of subtlety-knowers, is the condition, no self-selling (boasting) : " O man of wisdom ! either words known (understood and weighed) utter ; or silent be."

O Saki , wine, give. For Hafiz's profligacies, understood Asaf, the Lord of conjunction, fault-forgiving, defect-concealing.