The Poetry Of Hafiz Collection

Hafiz, a Sufi poet, expressed in poetry love for the divine, and the intoxicating oneness of union with it. Hafiz, along with many Sufi masters, uses wine as the symbol for love. The intoxication that results from both is why it is such a fitting comparison. Hafiz spoke out about the hypocrisy and deceit that exists in society, and was more outspoken in pointing this out than many poets similar to him.

All the Hemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.

Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season

Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.

Make a new water-mark on your excitement

And love.

Like a blooming night flower,

Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness

And giving

Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence

Lie beside an equator

In your heart.

Greet Yourself

In your thousand other forms

As you mount the hidden tide and travel

Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven

Are sitting around a fire

Chatting

While stitching themselves together

Into the Great Circle inside of

You.

From: 'The Subject Tonight is Love'

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

From the Large Jug, Drink

From the large jug, drink the wine of Unity,

So that from your heart you can wash away the futility of life's grief.

But like this large jug, still keep the heart expansive.

Why would you want to keep the heart captive, like an unopened bottle

of wine?

With your mouth full of wine, you are selfless

And will never boast of your own abilities again.

Be like the humble stone at your feet rather than striving to be like a

Sublime cloud: the more you mix colors of deceit, the more colorless

your ragged wet coat will get.

Connect the heart to the wine, so that it has body,

Then cut off the neck of hypocrisy and piety of this new man.

Be like Hafiz: Get up and make an effort. Don't lie around like a bum.

He who throws himself at the Beloved's feet is like a workhorse and will

be rewarded with boundless pastures and eternal rest.

From: Drunk on the Wine of the Beloved

Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe

I Have Learned So Much

I

Have

Learned

So much from God

That I can no longer

Call

Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,

a Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself

With me

That I can no longer call myself

A man, a woman, an angel,

Or even a pure

Soul.

Love has

Befriended Hafiz so completely

It has turned to ash

And freed

Me

Of every concept and image

my mind has ever known.

From: 'The Gift'

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Let Thought Become Your

Beautiful Lover

Let thought become the beautiful Woman.

Cultivate your mind and heart to that depth

That it can give you everything

A warm body can.

Why just keep making love with God's child-- Form

When the Friend Himself is standing

Before us

So open-armed?

My dear,

Let prayer become your beautiful Lover

And become free,

Become free of this whole world

Like Hafiz.

From: 'The Gift'

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

School of Truth

O fool, do something, so you won't just stand there looking dumb.

If you are not traveling and on the road, how can you call yourself a guide?

In the School of Truth, one sits at the feet of the Master of Love.

So listen, son, so that one day you may be an old father, too!

All this eating and sleeping has made you ignorant and fat;

By denying yourself food and sleep, you may still have a chance.

Know this: If God should shine His lovelight on your heart,

I promise you'll shine brighter than a dozen suns.

And I say: wash the tarnished copper of your life from your hands;

To be Love's alchemist, you should be working with gold.

Don't sit there thinking; go out and immerse yourself in God's sea.

Having only one hair wet with water will not put knowledge in that head.

For those who see only God, their vision

Is pure, and not a doubt remains.

Even if our world is turned upside down and blown over by the wind,

If you are doubtless, you won't lose a thing.

O Hafiz, if it is union with the Beloved that you seek,

Be the dust at the Wise One's door, and speak!

From: 'Drunk On the Wind of the Beloved'

Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe

Laughing At the Word Two

Only

That Illumined

One

Who keeps

Seducing the formless into form

Had the charm to win my

Heart.

Only a Perfect One

Who is always

Laughing at the word

Two

Can make you know

Of

Love.

From: 'The Gift'

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

I Know The Way You Can Get

I know the way you can get

When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,

Your sweet muscles cramp.

Children become concerned

About a strange look that appears in your eyes

Which even begins to worry your own mirror

And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness

And call an important conference in a tall tree.

They decide which secret code to chant

To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness

That arrays itself against the world

And throws sharp stones and spears into

The innocent

And into one's self.

O I know the way you can get

If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart

Every sentence your friends and teachers say,

Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale

Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure

From every angle in your darkness

The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once

Trusted.

I know the way you can get

If you have not had a drink from Love's

Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of

The vital need

To keep remembering God,

So you will come to know and see Him

As being so Playful

And Wanting,

Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:

Bring your cup near me.

For all I care about

Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about

Is giving Love!

From: 'I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz'

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

I've Said It Before and I'll Say It Again

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

It's not my fault that with a broken heart, I've gone this way.

In front of a mirror they have put me like a parrot,

And behind the mirror the Teacher tells me what to say.

Whether I am perceived as a thorn or a rose, it's

The Gardener who has fed and nourished me day to day.

O friends, don't blame me for this broken heart;

Inside me there is a great jewel and it's to the Jeweler's shop I go.

Even though, to pious, drinking wine is a sin,

Don't judge me; I use it as a bleach to wash the color of hypocrisy away.

All that laughing and weeping of lovers must be coming from some other place;

Here, all night I sing with my winecup and then moan for You all day.

If someone were to ask Hafiz, "Why do you spend all your time sitting in

The Winehouse door?," to this man I would say, "From there, standing,

I can see both the Path and the Way.

From: Drunk on the Wind of the Beloved

Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe