Hafez · Curls dishevelled, flushed and laughing
زلف آشفته و خوی کرده و خندان لب و مستپیرهن چاک و غزل خوان و صراحی در دست
نرگسش عربده جوی و لبش افسوس کناننیم شب دوش به بالین من آمد بنشست
سر فرا گوش من آورد به آواز حزینگفت ای عاشق دیرینه من خوابت هست
عاشقی را که چنین باده شبگیر دهندکافر عشق بود گر نشود باده پرست
برو ای زاهد و بر دردکشان خرده مگیرکه ندادند جز این تحفه به ما روز الست
آن چه او ریخت به پیمانه ما نوشیدیماگر از خمر بهشت است وگر باده مست
خنده جام می و زلف گره گیر نگارای بسا توبه که چون توبه حافظ بشکست
Something you thought had gone quiet may return unexpectedly, as the beloved comes at midnight and whispers, "Are you asleep?" This verse asks you to stay awake to what life brings, even when it arrives in an untidy or surprising form. Hafez accepts what has been poured into his cup without second-guessing it, and he asks critics to leave him in peace. Receive what is given to you with an open heart. Old resolutions may soften, and that need not be a failure.
Curls dishevelled, flushed with sweat, lips laughing and drunk,
shirt torn open, singing a ghazal, a flask of wine in hand,
her narcissus eye spoiling for a quarrel, her lip mocking and lamenting,
at midnight last night she came to my pillow and sat down.
She brought her head close to my ear and in a sorrowful voice
said: "O my lover of old, are you asleep?"
A lover to whom they give such wine before dawn
is an infidel to love if he does not become a worshipper of wine.
Go, O ascetic, and do not find fault with the dreg-drinkers,
for on the day of Alast they gave us no gift but this.
Whatever He poured into our measure, we drank,
whether it was the wine of paradise or the wine of drunkenness.
The laughter of the wine cup and the beloved's knotted curl:
oh, how many vows of repentance they have broken, like Hafez's!