Part 4

It is a curious coincidence (if it be nothing more) that at the time when mystical poetry was taking a recognised place in the literature of Persia and of India, it was also springing into existence in the West. The songs of the Troubadours were avowedly intended to convey a meaning deeper than that which lay upon the surface; the Romance of the Rose comes nearer than any other Western allegory to a full-fledged mysticism worthy of an Oriental poet. St. Francis addresses his Redeemer in terms not very different from those used by Hafiz to express his longing after divine wisdom, and the Beatrice, perhaps of the _Vita Nuova_, certainly of the Divine Comedy, is no less intangible than the allegorical mistress (when she is allegorical) of the Persian.

Hafiz and Dante, it is interesting to note, were almost contemporaries. At the time when Dante was climbing Can Grande’s weary stair, Hafiz was opening his eyes upon a yet more tumultuous world. Both were driven by the confusion around them to look for some solid platform on which to build a theory of existence, but Dante found it in that strenuous personal faith which is for ever impossible to minds of the temper of that of Hafiz. Moreover, the mysticism of Dante stands with its feet planted firmly upon the earth: man and his deeds might be fleeting, but they laid so strong a hold upon the poet’s imagination that he welded them into a stepping-stone to that which shall not pass away. His own life was spent in a ceaseless political activity; for all his visionary journeys through heaven and hell, Dante lived as keenly as any of his contemporaries. The fire still burns in the dead heart; the fierce and tender spirit, roused by turns to merciless condemnation and exquisite pity, still glows with a flame removed from mortal conditions, which the chill of death cannot extinguish as long as men shall read and understand. Through him his age lives. The people whom he had met, those of whom he had only heard, the smallest incidents of his time, the sum of all that it knew and of all that it believed, are struck out for ever, hard and sharp, in his vivid lines; and the fortunes of Florence, of one little town in a little corner of the world, loom to us, under the poet’s influence, as big and as tragic as they seemed to that most ardent of citizens. To Hafiz, on the contrary, modern instances have no value; contemporary history is too small an episode to occupy his thoughts. During his lifetime the city that he loved, perhaps as dearly as Dante loved Florence, was besieged and taken five or six times; it changed hands even more often. It was drenched with blood by one conqueror, filled with revelry by a second, and subjected to the hard rule of asceticism by a third. One after another Hafiz saw kings and princes rise into power and vanish “like snow upon the desert’s dusty face.” Pitiful tragedies, great rejoicings, the fall of kingdoms, and the clash of battle—all these he must have seen and heard. But what echo of them is there in his poems? Almost none. An occasional allusion which learned commentators refer to some political event; an exaggerated effusion in praise first of one king, then of another; the celebration of such and such a victory and of the prowess of such and such a royal general—just what any self-respecting court poet would feel it incumbent upon himself to write; and no more.

But some of us will feel that the apparent indifference of Hafiz lends to his philosophy a quality which that of Dante does not possess. The Italian is bound down within the limits of his own realism, his theory of the universe is essentially of his own age, and what to him was so acutely real is to many of us merely a beautiful or a terrible image. The picture that Hafiz drew represents a wider landscape, though the immediate foreground may not be so distinct. It is as if his mental eye, endowed with wonderful acuteness of vision, had penetrated into those provinces of thought which we of a later age were destined to inhabit. We can forgive him for leaving to us so indistinct a representation of his own time, and of the life of the individual in it, when we find him formulating ideas as profound as the warning that there is no musician to whose music both the drunk and the sober can dance.

Renan has put into a few luminous sentences his view of the mystical poets of India and Persia. “On sait que dans ces pays,” he says, “s’est développée une vaste littérature où l’amour divin et l’amour terrestre se croisent d’une façon souvent difficile à démêler. L’origine de ce singulier genre de poésie est une question qui n’est pas encore éclaircie. Dans beaucoup de cas les sens mystiques prêtés à certaines poésies érotiques persanes et hindoues n’ont pas plus de réalité que les allégories du Cantique des Cantiques. Pour Hafiz, par exemple, il semble bien que l’explication allégorique est le plus souvent un fruit de la fantaisie des commentateurs, ou des précautions que les admirateurs du poète étaient obligés de prendre pour sauver l’orthodoxie de leur auteur favori. Puis l’imagination étant montée sur ce thème, et les esprits étant faussés par une exégèse qui ne voulait voir partout qu’allégories, on en est venu à faire des poèmes réellement à double sens. Comme ceux de Djellaleddin Rumi, de Wali, &c.... Dans l’Inde et la Perse ce genre de poésie (érotico-mystique) est le fruit d’un extrème raffinement, d’une imagination vive et portée au quiétisme, d’un certain goût du mystère, et aussi, en Perse du moins, de l’hypocrisie imposée par le fanatisme musulman. C’est, en effet, comme réaction contre la sécheresse de l’Islamisme que le soufisme a fait fortune chez les musulmans non arabes. Il y faut voir une révolte de l’esprit arien contre l’effroyante simplicité de l’esprit sémitique, excluant par la rigueur de sa théologie toute devotion particulière, toute doctrine secrète, toute combinaison religieuse vivante et variée.”[15]

Those who have written poems “réellement à double sens” are careful to insist upon the mighty secrets that their words convey. “The things which wise men, who are sometimes called drunkards and sometimes seers,” says one of them, “wish to express by the words wine, cup and cup-bearer, musician, magian, and Christian girdle, are so many profound mysteries which sometimes they translate by an enigma and sometimes they reveal.” The symbols used by each writer are more or less the same; there is an accepted Sufi code with which the initiated are acquainted. “The nightingale, and none beside, knows the full worth of the rose,” sings Hafiz, “for many a one reads the leaf and understands not the meaning thereof.” But though we may not all be nightingales, we have some guide to the interpretation of the leaf. Many of the words in the Sufi dictionary have been expounded to the outer world. The tavern, for instance, is the place of instruction or worship, of which the tavern-keeper is the teacher or priest, and the wine the spirit of divine knowledge which is poured out for his disciples; the idol is God; beauty is the divine perfection; shining locks the expansion of his glory; down on the cheek denotes the cloud of spirits that encircles his throne; and a black mole is the point of indivisible unity. The catalogue might be continued to any extent; almost every word has a vague and somewhat shifting significance in the language of mysticism, which he who has a mind for such exercises may decipher if he choose.

Hafiz is rather the forerunner than the founder of this school of poets. It is equally unsatisfactory to give a completely mystical or a completely material interpretation to his songs. He wrote of the world as he found it. In his experience pleasure and religion were the two most important incentives to human action; he ignored neither the one nor the other. I am very conscious that my appreciation of the poet is that of the Western. Exactly on what grounds he is appreciated in the East it is difficult to determine, and what his compatriots make of his teaching it is perhaps impossible to understand. From our point of view, then, the sum of his philosophy seems to be, that though there is little of which we can be certain, that little must always be the object of all men’s desire; each of us will set out upon the search for it along a different road, and if none will find his road easy to follow, each may, if he be wise, discover compensations for his toil by the wayside. And for the rest, “Who knows the secret of the veil?” Like many a good and brave man before his time and since, I think he was content to “faintly trust the larger hope.”

FROM THE DIVAN OF HAFIZ

POEMS FROM THE DIVAN OF HAFIZ

I

Arise, oh Cup-bearer, rise! and bring To lips that are thirsting the bowl they praise, For it seemed that love was an easy thing, But my feet have fallen on difficult ways. I have prayed the wind o’er my heart to fling The fragrance of musk in her hair that sleeps— In the night of her hair—yet no fragrance stays The tears of my heart’s blood my sad heart weeps.

Hear the Tavern-keeper who counsels you: “With wine, with red wine your prayer carpet dye!” There was never a traveller like him but knew The ways of the road and the hostelry. Where shall I rest, when the still night through, Beyond thy gateway, oh Heart of my heart, The bells of the camels lament and cry: “Bind up thy burden again and depart!”

The waves run high, night is clouded with fears, And eddying whirlpools clash and roar; How shall my drowning voice strike their ears Whose light-freighted vessels have reached the shore?

I sought mine own; the unsparing years Have brought me mine own, a dishonoured name. What cloak shall cover my misery o’er When each jesting mouth has rehearsed my shame!

Oh Hafiz, seeking an end to strife, Hold fast in thy mind what the wise have writ: “If at last thou attain the desire of thy life, Cast the world aside, yea, abandon it!”

II

The bird of gardens sang unto the rose, New blown in the clear dawn: “Bow down thy head! As fair as thou within this garden close, Many have bloomed and died.” She laughed and said: “That I am born to fade grieves not my heart; But never was it a true lover’s part To vex with bitter words his love’s repose.”

The tavern step shall be thy hostelry, For Love’s diviner breath comes but to those That suppliant on the dusty threshold lie. And thou, if thou would’st drink the wine that flows From Life’s bejewelled goblet, ruby red, Upon thine eyelashes thine eyes shall thread A thousand tears for this temerity.

Last night when Irem’s magic garden slept, Stirring the hyacinth’s purple tresses curled, The wind of morning through the alleys stept. “Where is thy cup, the mirror of the world? Ah, where is Love, thou Throne of Djem?” I cried. The breezes knew not; but “Alas,” they sighed, “That happiness should sleep so long!” and wept.

Not on the lips of men Love’s secret lies, Remote and unrevealed his dwelling-place. Oh Saki, come! the idle laughter dies When thou the feast with heavenly wine dost grace. Patience and wisdom, Hafiz, in a sea Of thine own tears are drowned; thy misery They could not still nor hide from curious eyes.

III

Wind from the east, oh Lapwing of the day, I send thee to my Lady, though the way Is far to Saba, where I bid thee fly; Lest in the dust thy tameless wings should lie, Broken with grief, I send thee to thy nest, Fidelity.

Or far or near there is no halting-place Upon Love’s road—absent, I see thy face, And in thine ear my wind-blown greetings sound, North winds and east waft them where they are bound, Each morn and eve convoys of greeting fair I send to thee.

Unto mine eyes a stranger, thou that art A comrade ever-present to my heart, What whispered prayers and what full meed of praise I send to thee.

Lest Sorrow’s army waste thy heart’s domain, I send my life to bring thee peace again, Dear life thy ransom! From thy singers learn How one that longs for thee may weep and burn; Sonnets and broken words, sweet notes and songs I send to thee.

Give me the cup! a voice rings in mine ears Crying: “Bear patiently the bitter years! For all thine ills, I send thee heavenly grace. God the Creator mirrored in thy face Thine eyes shall see, God’s image in the glass I send to thee.

“Hafiz, thy praise alone my comrades sing; Hasten to us, thou that art sorrowing! A robe of honour and a harnessed steed I send to thee.”

IV

Sleep on thine eyes, bright as narcissus flowers, Falls not in vain! And not in vain thy hair’s soft radiance showers— Ah, not in vain!

Before the milk upon thy lips was dry, I said: “Lips where the salt of wit doth lie, Sweets shall be mingled with thy mockery, And not in vain!”

Thy mouth the fountain where Life’s waters flow, A dimpled well of tears is set below, And death lies near to life thy lovers know, But know in vain!

God send to thee great length of happy days! Lo, not for his own life thy servant prays; Love’s dart in thy bent brows the Archer lays, Nor shoots in vain.

Art thou with grief afflicted, with the smart Of absence, and is bitter toil thy part? Thy lamentations and thy tears, oh Heart, Are not in vain!

Last night the wind from out her village blew, And wandered all the garden alleys through, Oh rose, tearing thy bosom’s robe in two; ’Twas not in vain!

And Hafiz, though thy heart within thee dies, Hiding love’s agony from curious eyes, Ah, not in vain thy tears, not vain thy sighs, Not all in vain!

V

Oh Turkish maid of Shiraz! in thy hand If thou’lt take my heart, for the mole on thy cheek I would barter Bokhara and Samarkand. Bring, Cup-bearer, all that is left of thy wine! In the Garden of Paradise vainly thou’lt seek The lip of the fountain of Ruknabad, And the bowers of Mosalla where roses twine.

They have filled the city with blood and broil, Those soft-voiced Lulis for whom we sigh; As Turkish robbers fall on the spoil, They have robbed and plundered the peace of my heart. Dowered is my mistress, a beggar am I; What shall I bring her? a beautiful face Needs nor jewel nor mole nor the tiring-maid’s art.

Brave tales of singers and wine relate, The key to the Hidden ’twere vain to seek; No wisdom of ours has unlocked that gate, And locked to our wisdom it still shall be. But of Joseph’s beauty the lute shall speak; And the minstrel knows that Zuleika came forth, Love parting the curtains of modesty.

When thou spokest ill of thy servant ’twas well— God pardon thee! for thy words were sweet; Not unwelcomed the bitterest answer fell From lips where the ruby and sugar lay. But, fair Love, let good counsel direct thy feet; Far dearer to youth than dear life itself Are the warnings of one grown wise—and grey!

The song is sung and the pearl is strung; Come hither, oh Hafiz, and sing again! And the listening Heavens above thee hung Shall loose o’er thy verse the Pleiades’ chain.

VI

A flower-tinted cheek, the flowery close Of the fair earth, these are enough for me— Enough that in the meadow wanes and grows The shadow of a graceful cypress-tree. I am no lover of hypocrisy; Of all the treasures that the earth can boast, A brimming cup of wine I prize the most— This is enough for me!

To them that here renowned for virtue live, A heavenly palace is the meet reward; To me, the drunkard and the beggar, give The temple of the grape with red wine stored! Beside a river seat thee on the sward; It floweth past—so flows thy life away, So sweetly, swiftly, fleets our little day— Swift, but enough for me!

Look upon all the gold in the world’s mart, On all the tears the world hath shed in vain; Shall they not satisfy thy craving heart? I have enough of loss, enough of gain; I have my Love, what more can I obtain? Mine is the joy of her companionship Whose healing lip is laid upon my lip— This is enough for me!

I pray thee send not forth my naked soul From its poor house to seek for Paradise; Though heaven and earth before me God unroll, Back to thy village still my spirit flies. And, Hafiz, at the door of Kismet lies No just complaint—a mind like water clear, A song that swells and dies upon the ear, These are enough for thee!

VII

From the garden of Heaven a western breeze Blows through the leaves of my garden of earth; With a love like a huri I’ld take mine ease, And wine! bring me wine, the giver of mirth! To-day the beggar may boast him a king, His banqueting-hall is the ripening field, And his tent the shadow that soft clouds fling.

A tale of April the meadows unfold— Ah, foolish for future credit to slave, And to leave the cash of the present untold! Build a fort with wine where thy heart may brave The assault of the world; when thy fortress falls, The relentless victor shall knead from thy dust The bricks that repair its crumbling walls.

Trust not the word of that foe in the fight! Shall the lamp of the synagogue lend its flame To set thy monastic torches alight? Drunken am I, yet place not my name In the Book of Doom, nor pass judgment on it; Who knows what the secret finger of Fate Upon his own white forehead has writ!

And when the spirit of Hafiz has fled, Follow his bier with a tribute of sighs; Though the ocean of sin has closed o’er his head, He may find a place in God’s Paradise.

VIII

The rose has flushed red, the bud has burst, And drunk with joy is the nightingale— Hail, Sufis! lovers of wine, all hail! For wine is proclaimed to a world athirst. Like a rock your repentance seemed to you; Behold the marvel! of what avail Was your rock, for a goblet has cleft it in two!

Bring wine for the king and the slave at the gate! Alike for all is the banquet spread, And drunk and sober are warmed and fed. When the feast is done and the night grows late, And the second door of the tavern gapes wide, The low and the mighty must bow the head ’Neath the archway of Life, to meet what ... outside?

Except thy road through affliction pass, None may reach the halting-station of mirth; God’s treaty: Am I not Lord of the earth? Man sealed with a sigh: Ah yes, alas! Nor with Is nor Is Not let thy mind contend; Rest assured all perfection of mortal birth In the great Is Not at the last shall end.

For Assaf’s pomp, and the steeds of the wind, And the speech of birds, down the wind have fled, And he that was lord of them all is dead; Of his mastery nothing remains behind. Shoot not thy feathered arrow astray! A bow-shot’s length through the air it has sped, And then ... dropped down in the dusty way.

But to thee, oh Hafiz, to thee, oh Tongue That speaks through the mouth of the slender reed, What thanks to thee when thy verses speed From lip to lip, and the song thou hast sung?

IX

Oh Cup-bearer, set my glass afire With the light of wine! oh minstrel, sing: The world fulfilleth my heart’s desire! Reflected within the goblet’s ring I see the glow of my Love’s red cheek, And scant of wit, ye who fail to seek The pleasures that wine alone can bring!

Let not the blandishments be checked That slender beauties lavish on me, Until in the grace of the cypress decked, My Love shall come like a ruddy pine-tree He cannot perish whose heart doth hold The life love breathes—though my days are told, In the Book of the World lives my constancy.

But when the Day of Reckoning is here, I fancy little will be the gain That accrues to the Sheikh for his lawful cheer, Or to me for the draught forbidden I drain. The drunken eyes of my comrades shine, And I too, stretching my hand to the wine, On the neck of drunkenness loosen the rein.

Oh wind, if thou passest the garden close Of my heart’s dear master, carry for me The message I send to him, wind that blows! “Why hast thou thrust from thy memory My hapless name?” breathe low in his ear; “Knowest thou not that the day is near When nor thou nor any shall think on me?”

If with tears, oh Hafiz, thine eyes are wet, Scatter them round thee like grain, and snare The Bird of Joy when it comes to thy net. As the tulip shrinks from the cold night air, So shrank my heart and quailed in the shade; Oh Song-bird Fortune, the toils are laid, When shall thy bright wings lie pinioned there?

The heavens’ green sea and the bark therein, The slender bark of the crescent moon, Are lost in thy bounty’s radiant noon, Vizir and pilgrim, Kawameddin!

X

Singer, sweet Singer, fresh notes strew, Fresh and afresh and new and new! Heart-gladdening wine thy lips imbrue, Fresh and afresh and new and new!

Saki, thy radiant feet I hail; Flush with red wine the goblets pale, Flush our pale cheeks to drunken hue, Fresh and afresh and new and new!

Then with thy love to toy with thee, Rest thee, ah, rest! where none can see; Seek thy delight, for kisses sue, Fresh and afresh and new and new!

Here round thy life the vine is twined; Drink! for elsewhere what wine wilt find? Drink to her name, to hours that flew, Hours ever fresh and new and new!