HAFIZ OF SHIRAZ


Thus said the Poet: " When Death comes to you, 
All ye whose life-sand through the hour-glass slips, 
He lays two fingers on your ears, and two 
Upon your eyes he lays, one on your lips, 
Whispering: Silence!" Although deaf thine ear, 
Thine eye, my Hafiz, suffer Time's eclipse, 
The songs thou sangest still all men may hear. 

Songs of dead laughter, songs of love once hot, 

Songs of a cup once flushed rose-red with wine, 

Songs of a rose whose beauty is forgot, 

A nightingale that piped hushed lays divine : 

And still a graver music runs beneath 

The tender love notes of those songs of thine, 

Oh, Seeker of the keys of Life and Death !