Hafez · Ghazal 275 · Sufi, pick a rose
صوفی گلی بچین و مرقع به خار بخشوین زهد خشک را به می خوشگوار بخش
طامات و شطح در ره آهنگ چنگ نهتسبیح و طیلسان به می و میگسار بخش
زهد گران که شاهد و ساقی نمی‌خرنددر حلقه چمن به نسیم بهار بخش
راهم شراب لعل زد ای میر عاشقانخون مرا به چاه زنخدان یار بخش
یا رب به وقت گل، گنه بنده عفو کنوین ماجرا به سرو لب جویبار بخش
ای آن که ره به مشرب مقصود برده‌ایزین بحر، قطره‌ای به من خاکسار بخش
شکرانه را که چشم تو روی بتان ندیدما را به عفو و لطف خداوندگار بخش
ساقی چو شاه نوش کند باده صبوحگو جام زر به حافظ شب زنده دار بخش
Hafez invites you to put down what is heavy and dry, the stiff rules and anxious self-watching, and to pick a rose instead. This is not carelessness but a turning towards what is alive. If you have stumbled, ask for forgiveness simply, as he does in the season of flowers, trusting that grace is wider than our faults. Seek out someone who has found the spring you are looking for, and ask for a drop. Your nights of watchfulness have not gone unseen; a golden cup is waiting.
Sufi, pick a rose, and give your patched cloak to the thorn;
give away this dry asceticism for sweet-tasting wine.
Lay your pious tricks and ecstatic boasts in the path of the harp's song;
give away your rosary and your shawl for wine and the wine-drinker.
Heavy asceticism, which neither the beauty nor the saqi will buy,
give away to the spring breeze in the circle of the meadow.
Ruby wine has waylaid me, O prince of lovers;
forgive my blood for the sake of the well in the beloved's chin.
O Lord, in the season of the rose forgive your servant's sin,
and pardon this affair for the sake of the cypress by the stream.
O you who have found the way to the spring of the goal,
grant from this sea one drop to me, who am humble as dust.
In thanks that your eye never looked upon the faces of beauties,
forgive us, through the pardon and grace of the Lord.
Saqi, when the King drinks the morning wine,
tell him to give a golden cup to Hafez, who keeps vigil through the night.