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Muslim / Sufi
14th Century

About Hafiz

Timeline (1320 - 1389)

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English version by
Bernard Lewis

Original Language
Persian/Farsi

If life remains, I shall go back to the tavern

Commentary by
Ivan M. Granger

Themes
  Drum
  Flute
  Heart
  Pain and Wounding
 

 

Recommended Books

Drunk on the Wine of Beloved: 100 Poems of Hafiz, by Thomas Rain Crowe
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master, by Daniel Ladinsky
The Hafez Poems of Gertrude Bell: With the Original Persian on the Facing Page, by Gertrude Bell
Hafez: Teachings of the Philosopher of Love, by Haleh Pourafzal
The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan, Translated by Coleman Barks

More >>

If life remains, I shall go back to the tavern
and do no other work than serve the revellers.
Happy day when, with streaming eyes,
I shall go again to sprinkle the tavern floor.
There is no knowledge among these folk,
Suffer me, God, to offer my jewel of self to another buyer.
If the Friend has gone, rejecting the claim of old friendship,
God forbid I should go and look for another friend.
If the turn of the heavenly wheel favor me
I shall find some other craft to bring him back.

My soul seeks wholeness, if that be permitted
by his wanton glance and bandit tresses.
See our guarded secret, a ballad sung
with drum and flute at the gate of another bazaar.
Every moment I sigh in sorrow, for fate, every hour
strikes at my wounded heart with another torment.
Yet truly I say: Hafiz is not alone in this plight;
So many others were swallowed in the desert.

 

 

-- from Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems, Translated by Bernard Lewis

Amazon.com

 

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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

The painful, almost desperate longing of the experience of God -- out of reach, after a period or blissful merging.


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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.