Classic Poem

Love is guide enough to farers in Love's road;
Tears the means I made of finding her abode.

How shall she regard the billows of our tears,
She, whose bark o'er bloody oceans ever rode?

This my ill-repute free-willing is not: He
Caused me stray in Love, the pathway me who showed.

Or the fire of fair ones' faces shun or pass
Uncomplaining o'er the flames, on Abram's mode.

Either look to miss thy purpose, or thy foot,
Save with one to guide thee, set not in this road.

Long I've pondered o'er this couplet, that whilere
Sang a mahout, by the Nile-bank as he strode;

" Have in mind the mahout's fashions or the way
" After elephants to India leave untrode. "

On thy face draw not the lover's line of blue
Or upon the wede of virtue cast the woad.

Unto heav'n, sans wine and minstrel, bid me not;
Wine, not nectar, my delight is; paid , not owed .

Hast thou aught of meaning, Hafiz? Bring it forth:
Else no more than idle prate is this thine ode.