My friend has fled! alas, my friend has fled, <br />And left me nought but tears and pain behind! <br />Like smoke above a flame caught by the wind, <br />So rose she from my breast and forth she sped. <br />Drunk with desire, I seized Love's cup divine, <br />But she that held it poured the bitter wine <br />Of Separation into it and fled. <br /> <br />The hunter she, and I the helpless prey; <br />Wounded and sick, round me her toils she drew, <br />My heart into a sea of sorrow threw, <br />Bound up her camel loads and fled away. <br />Fain had I laid an ambush for her soul, <br />She saw and vanished, and the timid foal, <br />Good Fortune, slipped the rein and would not stay. <br /> <br />My heart was all too narrow for my woe, <br />And tears of blood my weeping eyes have shed, <br />A crimson stream across the desert sped, <br />Rising from out my sad heart's overflow. <br />She knew not what Love's meanest slave can tell: <br />''Tis sweet to serve!' but threw me a Farewell, <br />Kissing my threshold, turned, and cried 'I go!' <br /> <br />In the clear dawn, before the east was red, <br />Before the rose had torn her veil in two, <br />A nightingale through Hafiz' garden flew, <br />Stayed but to fill its song with tears, and fled.<br /><br />Shams al-Din Hafiz Shirazi<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-friend-has-fled/
