Hafez · Ghazal 289 · Her moon-like cheek
مجمع خوبی و لطف است عذار چو مهشلیکنش مهر و وفا نیست خدایا بدهش
دلبرم شاهد و طفل است و به بازی روزیبکشد زارم و در شرع نباشد گنهش
من همان به که از او نیک نگه دارم دلکه بد و نیک ندیده‌ست و ندارد نگهش
بوی شیر از لب همچون شکرش می‌آیدگرچه خون می‌چکد از شیوه چشم سیهش
چارده ساله بتی چابک شیرین دارمکه به جان حلقه به گوش است مه چاردهش
از پی آن گل نورسته دل ما یاربخود کجا شد که ندیدیم در این چند گهش؟
یار دلدار من ار قلب بدین سان شکندببرد زود به جانداری خود پادشهش
جان به شکرانه کنم صرف گر آن دانه درصدف سینه حافظ بود آرامگهش
This ghazal admires a beauty that is still young and careless, lovely but not yet kind. Its counsel for you is gentle self-care: guard your heart wisely when what you love has not yet learned faithfulness, and pray, as Hafez does, that kindness will grow in time. Do not hand over everything to one who cannot yet hold it. Yet keep your hope, for the poem ends by imagining the pearl coming to rest in the shell of a waiting heart. Patience and good sense together will serve you well.
Her moon-like cheek is the meeting-place of beauty and grace,
but she has no kindness or faithfulness: O God, give them to her.
My beloved is a beauty and a child, and one day, in play,
she will kill me pitifully, and by the law it will be no sin of hers.
It is best that I guard my heart well from her,
for she has not yet known good and bad, and keeps no watch over it.
The scent of milk still comes from her sugar-sweet lips,
though blood drips from the ways of her black eyes.
I have an idol like the moon of fourteen nights, nimble and sweet,
whose ring the full moon of the fourteenth night wears in its ear with all its soul.
O Lord, where has our heart gone, following that new-blown rose,
that we have not seen it these several days?
If my heart-holding friend breaks hearts like this,
the King will soon take her into his own guard.
I would spend my life in thanks if that single pearl
should find its resting place in the oyster of Hafez's breast.