Translations of the Ghazals of Hafiz

 

34- DUST 
Come, let us pass this pathway o'er
That to the tavern leads; 
There waits the wine, and there the door
That every traveller needs. 

On that first day, when we did sweat
To tipple and to kiss, 
It was our oath, that we would fare
No other way but this. 

Where Jamshid's crown and royal throne
Go sweeping down the wind,
'Tis little comfort we should moan:
In wine is joy to find. 

Because we hope that we may bring
Her waist to our embrace,
Lo, in our life-blood issuing
We linger in this place. 

Preacher, our frenzy is complete:
Waste not thy sage advice;--
We stand in the Beloved's street,
And seek not Paradise. 

Let Sufis wheel in mystic dance
And shout for ecstasy; 
We, too, have our exuberance,
We, too, ecstatics be.

The earth with pearls and rubies gleams
Where thou hast poured thy wine;
Less than the dust are we, it seems,
Beneath thy foot divine.

Hafiz, since we may never soar,
To ramparts of the sky,
Here at the threshold of this door
Forever let us lie.

 

Translator:

Arberry, A. J. (1947).  Hafiz: Fifty poems.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

 

 

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