غزل شمارهٔ 155

If after Him, I go, He up stirreth calamity: And if I sit from search, in wrath, He ariseth.

And, if, through desire, a moment on a highway, I fall, like the dust at his foot, like the wind, He fleeth.

And, if I desire half a kiss, a hundred reproaches, Like sugar, from the small round box of his mouth, He out poureth.

That deceit, that I behold in thy eye, Many a reputation that, even with the dust of the path, it spilleth.

The acclivity and declivity of love’s desert is calamity’s snare: A lion-hearted one is where, who not calamity shunneth?

Ask thou for life and a great patience; that the sphere, sorcery-practising, A thousand tricks more strange than this, evoketh.

Hafez! place thy head on the threshold of submission: For if thou make contention, with thee, Time contendeth.