Hafez · Ghazal 32 · When God shaped your eyebrow
خدا چو صورت ابروی دلگشای تو بستگشاد کار من اندر کرشمه‌های تو بست
مرا و سرو چمن را به خاک راه نشاندزمانه تا قصب نرگس قبای تو بست
ز کار ما و دل غنچه صد گره بگشودنسیم گل چو دل اندر پی هوای تو بست
مرا به بند تو دوران چرخ راضی کردولی چه سود که سررشته در رضای تو بست
چو نافه بر دل مسکین من گره مفکنکه عهد با سر زلف گره‌گشای تو بست
تو خود وصال دگر بودی ای نسیم وصالخطا نگر که دل امید در وفای تو بست
ز دست جور تو گفتم ز شهر خواهم رفتبه خنده گفت که حافظ برو، که پای تو بست؟
You may feel that the way forward depends entirely on someone else's mood or favour, as though the thread of your affairs were tied to another's hand. Hafez knows the feeling well. But the closing couplet carries a smile and a truth: when he threatens to leave, the beloved laughs, "Go. Who has bound your foot?" You are freer than you think. If you stay, let it be because your heart chooses to, not because you feel trapped. Seeing that clearly can loosen many knots at once.
When God shaped the form of your heart-opening eyebrow,
He bound the opening of my affairs to your glances.
Time sat me and the meadow's cypress down in the dust of the road
once it fastened on you the fine linen of a narcissus robe.
A hundred knots it loosened in our affairs and in the rosebud's heart,
the rose-breeze, once it bound its heart to following your desire.
The turning of the sky made me content with your bonds,
but what use, since it tied the end of the thread to your pleasure?
Do not tie knots in my poor heart, like a musk-pod,
for it has bound a pact with the tip of your knot-loosening curl.
You were yourself a union of another kind, O breeze of union;
see the mistake: my heart bound its hope to your faithfulness.
I said: "Because of your cruelty I will leave the city."
She laughed and said: "Go, Hafez. Who has bound your foot?"