The Rose Returns

Khwaja Hafez-e Shirazi

Returns again to the pleasances the rose, alive from the dead;

Before her feet in obeisance is bowed the violet's head.

The earth is gemmed as the skies are, the buds zodiac band,

For signs in happy ascendant and sweet conjunction spread,

The rose's season bereave not of wine and music and love,

For as the days of a man's life her little week is fled.

The faith of old Zoroaster renews the garden again,

For lo, the tulip is kindled with fire of Nimrod red.

The earth is even as ‘Eden, this hour of lily and rose;

This hour, alas! Not an ‘Eden's eternal dwelling-stead!

The rose with Solomon rides, borne aloft on wings of the wind;

The bulbul's anthem at dawn like the voice of David is shed.

Fill high the bowl to our lord's name, 'Imad-ud-Din Mahmud;

Behold King Solomon's Asef in him incarnated.

Beyond eternity's bounds stretch the gracious shade of his might;

Beneath that shadow, O Hafiz, be thine eternity sped.