Classic Poem

Is there ought sweeter than the delights of the garden
and companionship of the Spring?
But where is the cup-bearer?
Say what is the cause of his lingering?
Every pleasant moment that cometh to your hand,
score up as an invaluable prize!
Let no one hesitate,
for who knoweth the conclusion of the matter?
The tie of life is but a hair! Use thine intelligence;
be thyself thine own comrade in sorrow,
and what then is the sorrow
which Fate can deal thee?
The medium of the Fountain of Life
and the Gardens of Irem—
what is it but the enjoyment of a running stream
and a delicious wine?
The temperate men and the intemperate are both of one tribe:
what choice is there between them,
that we should surrender
our souls to dubious reasonings?
What reveal the silent heavens
of that which is behind the veil?
O litigant,
why dispute with the keeper of the Veil?
If to him who is bound up in error or sin
there is no room for warning or amendment,
what meaning is there in the words “Canceling,
and the mercy of the Forgiving One?”
The devotee longs for draughts from the river Kuther,
and Hafiz from a goblet of wine.
Between these, the will of the Creator—
what would that be?
In the hour of dawn the bird of the garden thus spoke
to a freshly blown rose:
“Be less disdainful, for in this garden
hath bloomed many a one like thee.”
The rose smiled, and said,
“We have never grieved at hearing the truth;
but no lover would speak so harshly to his beloved!”
To all eternity, the odor of love will never reach
the brain of that man who hath never swept with his brow
the dust from the sill of the wine-house.
Dost thou desire to drink the ruby-tinted wine
from that gold-begemmed goblet,
how many a pearl must thou first pierce
with the point of thine eyelashes!
Yesterday, when in the Rose Garden of Irem
the morning breeze with its gentle breath
began to disturb the hair of the spikenard,
I exclaimed, “O throne of Jemshid,
Where is thy magic world-reflecting mirror?”
And it replied, “Alas! That watchful Fortune should be slumbering!”
The words of love are not those that come to the tongue:
O cup-bearer,
cut short this asking and answering.
The tears of Hafiz have cast patience and wisdom into the sea:
how could it be otherwise?
The burning pangs of love how could he conceal?