| XXVII. My friend has fled! alas, my friend has fled | Title page | XXIX. From Canaan Joseph shall return, whose face |
HAST thou forgotten when thy stolen glance
Was turned to me, when on my happy face
Clearly thy love was writ, which doth enhance
All happiness? or when my sore disgrace
(Hast thou forgot?) drew from thine eyes reproof,
And made thee hold thy sweet red lips aloof,
Dowered, like Jesus’s breath, with healing grace?
Hast thou forgotten how the glorious
Swift nights flew past, the cup of dawn brimmed high?
My love and I alone, God favouring us!
And when she like a waning moon did lie,
And Steep had drawn his coif about her brow,
Hast thou forgot? Heaven’s crescent moon would bow
The head, and in her service pace the sky!
Hast thou forgotten, when a sojourner
Within the tavern gates and drunk with wine,
I found Love’s passionate wisdom hidden there,
Which in the mosque none even now divine?
The goblet’s carbuncle (hast thou forgot?)
Laughed out aloud, and speech flew hot
And fast between thy ruby lips and mine!
Hast thou forgotten when thy cheek’s dear torch
Lighted the beacon of desire in me,
And when my heart, like foolish moths that scorch
Their wings and yet return, turned all to thee?
Within the banquet-hall of Good Repute
(Hast thou forgot?) the wine’s self-pressed my suit,
And filled the morn with drunken jollity!
Hast thou forgotten when thou laid’st aright
The uncut gems of Hafiz’ inmost thought,
And side by side thy sweet care strung the bright
Array of verse on verse-hast thou forgot?
| XXVII. My friend has fled! alas, my friend has fled | Title page | XXIX. From Canaan Joseph shall return, whose face |