Hafez – searchable text

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Don’t worry so much about rogues and rakes,
You high-minded puritans.
You know the sins of others
Will not appear written on your foreheads anyway. 

Whether I am good or bad is not exactly to the point.
Go ahead and be who you are.
The world we live in Is a farm, and each of us reaps our own wheat. 

Whether we are drunk or sober, each of us is making
For the street of the Friend.
The temple, the synagogue,
The church, and the mosque are all houses of love. 

In my submission, I lower my head to the bricks
At the tavern door. If my critic can’t understand this,
His head must have something in common with the brick. 

Don’t make me lose hope in the grace given to us
In Pre-Eternity.
What firm knowledge do you have
About what goes on behind the dark curtain? 

I’m not the only one who has fallen away
From the holy cell; my father Adam himself
Let the eternal heaven slip out of his hands. 

If your inner nature contains so much virtue,
That must be deeply sublime! If your basic being
Has so much goodness, it must be deeply superior! 

Hafez, if it should be that your hand closes
Around a cup of wine at the moment of death,
You will go from the Magian tavern straight to heaven.