Hafez · Ghazal 9 · The garden is young again
رونق عهد شباب است دگر بستان رامی‌رسد مژده گل بلبل خوش‌الحان را
ای صبا گر به جوانان چمن باز رسیخدمت ما برسان سرو و گل و ریحان را
گر چنین جلوه کند مغبچه باده‌فروشخاک‌روب در میخانه کنم مژگان را
ای که بر مه کشی از عنبر سارا چوگانمضطرب‌حال مگردان، من سرگردان را
ترسم این قوم که بر دردکشان می‌خندنددر سر کار خرابات کنند ایمان را
یار مردان خدا باش که در کشتی نوحهست خاکی که به آبی نخرد طوفان را
برو از خانه گردون به در و نان مطلبکآن سیه‌کاسه در آخر بکشد مهمان را
هر که را خوابگه آخر مشتی خاک استگو چه حاجت که به افلاک کشی ایوان را
ماه کنعانی من! مسند مصر آن تو شدوقت آن است که بدرود کنی زندان را
حافظا می خور و رندی کن و خوش باش ولیدام تزویر مکن چون دگران قرآن را
Spring is returning to the garden of your life, and the rose's good news is on its way to the waiting nightingale. Like Joseph, who passed from prison to the throne of Egypt, you may be near the end of a time of confinement; it is time to say goodbye to it. Hafez adds wise counsel for the new season: keep company with people of good heart, who stay steady when the floods come; do not build your hopes on what passes; ask little of fortune. Be glad and free, but always sincere.
Once more the garden has the splendour of the season of youth;
the good news of the rose is reaching the sweet-voiced nightingale.
O breeze, if you come again to the young ones of the meadow,
carry our greetings to the cypress, the rose and the basil.
If the young Magian wine-seller shows himself like this,
I will make my eyelashes the broom for the tavern door.
O you who draw a polo stick of pure ambergris across the moon,
do not trouble me further; I am wandering enough.
I fear that these people who laugh at the dreg-drinkers
will lose their faith over the business of the tavern.
Be a friend to the people of God, for in Noah's ark
there is a dust that would not give a drop of water for the flood.
Go out of the house of the turning sky and do not ask it for bread,
for that black-bowled host in the end kills its guest.
For one whose last bed is a handful of earth,
tell me, what need to raise your hall up to the heavens?
My moon of Canaan, the throne of Egypt has become yours;
it is time for you to bid the prison farewell.
Hafez, drink wine, be a rend and be happy, but
do not, like others, make the Quran a snare of hypocrisy.