III78

I had a sweet dream where I still held a cup of wine,
Its meaning was clear: I had attained.

I've worked with much trouble for forty years,
But now my life is defined by two-year-old wine.

I asked fortune to show me the perfume of success,
Fortune told me "You'll find that in the Beloved's curls".

The hangover called grief hit me at sunset,
But then fortune filled my cup with bright wine.

At the tavern, I drink my own blood.
This is what was written from the beginning.

If you do not sow the seeds of Love,
Then you will be gone like flowers blown by the wind.

At dawn I went to the Rose Garden,
There I heard the bird of morning singing its life away with cries of Love.

The poetry of Hafiz began with the praise of Allah.
A single stanza of it is greater than many books of religion.

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