Classic Poem

Brim the bowls with Shiraz wine!
Roses round your temples twine;
Brim the bowls with Shiraz wine, —
Hafiz pledge we, Bard divine!
With the summer warmth that glows
In the wine and on the rose,
Blushing, fervid, ruby-bright,
We shall pledge his name aright.

Hafiz, in whose measures move
Youth and Beauty, Song and Love, —
In his veins the nimble flood
Was of wine, and not of blood.
All the songs he sang or thought
In his brain were never wrought,
But like rose-leaves fell apart
From that bursting rose, his heart.

Youth is morning's transient ray;
Love consumes itself away;
Time destroys what Beauty gives;
But in Song the Poet lives.
While we pledge him — thus — and thus —
He is present here in us;
'Tis his voice that cries, not mine:
Brim the bowls with Shiraz wine!