Hafez · Ghazal 334 · If my hand reaches your curl
گر دست رسد در سر زلفین تو بازمچون گوی چه سرها که به چوگان تو بازم
زلف تو مرا عمر دراز است ولی نیستدر دست، سر مویی از آن عمر درازم
پروانه راحت بده ای شمع که امشباز آتش دل پیش تو چون شمع گدازم
آن دم که به یک خنده دهم جان چو صراحیمستان تو خواهم که گزارند نمازم
چون نیست نماز من آلوده نمازیدر میکده زان کم نشود سوز و گدازم
در مسجد و میخانه خیالت اگر آیدمحراب و کمانچه ز دو ابروی تو سازم
گر خلوت ما را شبی از رخ بفروزیچون صبح بر آفاق جهان سر بفرازم
محمود بود عاقبت کار در این راهگر سر برود در سر سودای ایازم
حافظ غم دل با که بگویم؟ که در این دورجز جام نشاید که بود محرم رازم
Hafez gives himself wholly here, ready to stake everything on what he loves, and he finds the beloved's face in both the mosque and the tavern. His promise is that the end of this road will be praised, like Mahmud's devotion to Ayaz. If you are risking much for something dear to you, the verse reassures you that the outcome can be good. One visit of light can make you rise like the dawn. Keep your secret close, and keep your heart steady.
If my hand reaches the tip of your curls again,
how many heads, like balls, I will stake on your polo-stick!
Your curl is my long life, and yet
not a hair's tip of that long life is in my hand.
Give me leave to rest, O candle, for tonight,
from the fire in my heart, I melt before you like a candle.
When, like a wine-flask, I give up my life with one laugh,
I want your drunken ones to say the prayer over me.
Since my stained prayer is no real prayer at all,
my burning and melting will not grow less in the tavern.
In mosque or tavern, if your image comes to me,
I make a prayer-niche and a fiddle-bow of your two eyebrows.
If one night you light our solitude with your face,
like the dawn I will raise my head over the horizons of the world.
The end of the matter on this road will be praised,
even if my head is lost in passion for Ayaz.
Hafez, to whom shall I tell my heart's grief? For in this age
none but the cup is fit to keep my secret.