Hafez · Ghazal 234 · When wine rises like the sun
چو آفتاب می از مشرق پیاله برآیدز باغ عارض ساقی هزار لاله برآید
نسیم در سر گل بشکند کلاله سنبلچو از میان چمن بوی آن کلاله برآید
حکایت شب هجران نه آن حکایت حالیستکه شمه‌ای ز بیانش به صد رساله برآید
ز گرد خوان نگون فلک طمع نتوان داشتکه بی ملالت صد غصه، یک نواله برآید
به سعی خود نتوان برد پی به گوهر مقصودخیال باشد کاین کار بی حواله برآید
گرت چو نوح نبی صبر هست در غم طوفانبلا بگردد و کام هزارساله برآید
نسیم زلف تو چون بگذرد به تربت حافظز خاک کالبدش صد هزار لاله برآید
This ghazal is a promise to the patient. Hafez admits that the world rarely gives anything without effort and some sorrow, and that some things cannot be won by striving alone; they come when their time is decreed. His central image is Noah in the flood: if you can be patient through the storm, the calamity will turn and even a desire you have carried for a very long time will be fulfilled. Do your part, then rest in trust. Like the sun rising from the cup, a bright morning is ahead of you.
When wine rises like the sun from the east of the cup,
a thousand tulips rise from the garden of the saqi's cheek.
The breeze will crush the hyacinth's ringlet over the rose's head
when the scent of that ringlet rises from the meadow.
The tale of the night of separation is not the kind of tale
of which even a hint could be told in a hundred treatises.
From the table of the upturned heavens one cannot hope
that a single morsel comes without a hundred sorrows and much weariness.
You cannot track down the pearl of your aim by your own effort alone;
it is a fancy to think this work is done without a decree from above.
If, like the prophet Noah, you have patience in the grief of the flood,
the calamity will turn, and a thousand-year desire will be fulfilled.
When the breeze of your curl passes over Hafez's grave,
a hundred thousand tulips will rise from the dust of his body.