Hafez · Ghazal 297 · The tale of separation
زبان خامه ندارد سر بیان فراقوگرنه شرح دهم با تو داستان فراق
دریغ مدت عمرم که بر امید وصالبه سر رسید و نیامد به سر زمان فراق
سری که بر سر گردون به فخر می‌سودمبه راستان که نهادم، بر آستان فراق
چگونه باز کنم بال در هوای وصالکه ریخت مرغ دلم پر در آشیان فراق
کنون چه چاره که در بحر غم به گردابیفتاد زورق صبرم ز بادبان فراق
بسی نماند که کشتی عمر غرقه شودز موج شوق تو در بحر بی‌کران فراق
اگر به دست من افتد فراق را بکشمکه روز هجر سیه باد و خان و مان فراق
رفیق خیل خیالیم و همنشین شکیبقرین آتش هجران و هم قران فراق
چگونه دعوی وصلت کنم به جان؟ که شده‌ستتنم وکیل قضا و دلم ضمان فراق
ز سوز شوق دلم شد کباب دور از یارمدام خون جگر می‌خورم ز خوان فراق
فلک چو دید سرم را اسیر چنبر عشقببست گردن صبرم به ریسمان فراق
به پای شوق گر این ره به سر شدی حافظبه دست هجر ندادی کسی عنان فراق
This is a long lament of separation, every couplet circling the same ache. If you are living through distance from someone or something you love, Hafez's honesty may comfort you: the pen cannot hold it all, and he does not pretend otherwise. Yet notice that he keeps company with patience, even as the sea is wide. His last line holds a quiet truth: longing alone does not finish the road; time and grace must also do their work. Be gentle with yourself while you wait, and let patience walk beside you.
The pen's tongue has no power to tell of separation,
or else I would set out for you the tale of separation.
Alas for the span of my life, which, in the hope of union,
has come to its end, while the time of separation has not.
The head that I used to rub proudly against the top of the sky,
I swear by the truthful, I have laid on the threshold of separation.
How can I spread my wings in the air of union,
when the bird of my heart has shed its feathers in the nest of separation?
What remedy now, when into a whirlpool in the sea of sorrow
the boat of my patience has fallen, driven by the sail of separation?
Little is left before the ship of my life is wrecked
by the wave of longing for you in the boundless sea of separation.
If separation falls into my hands, I will kill it;
may the day of absence be black, and the house and home of separation!
We are companions of a troop of fancies and comrades of patience,
close to the fire of absence and yoked to separation.
How can I stake a claim with my life to union with you, when
my body has become fate's agent and my heart separation's guarantor?
From the burning of longing, far from the friend, my heart has turned to roasted meat;
I eat my liver's blood forever from the table of separation.
When the sky saw my head captive in the ring of love,
it bound the neck of my patience with the rope of separation.
If this road could be travelled to its end on the feet of longing, Hafez,
no one would hand the reins of separation over to absence.