Classic Poem

The Fast is over, the Festival is come,
and hearts are lifted up, and the wine is sparkling in the wine-house,
and wine we must drink!
The turn of the heavy dealer in abstinence is past,
the season of joy is arrived,
and of joyous revelers!
Why should reproach be heaped upon him,
who like me quaffeth wine?
This is neither sin or fault in the jovial lover!
The drinker of wine,
in whom is no false show and no dissimulation
is better than he who is a trader in semblances.
We are neither dissembling revelers
nor the comrades of hypocrites:
He who is the knower of all secrets knoweth this.
We discharge all our Divine obligations
and do evil to no man;
and whatever we are told is not right,
we say not that it is right.
What mattereth it,
that thou and I should quaff a few goblets of wine?
Wine is the blood of the vine;
it is not thy blood!
This is not a fault which throweth all into confusion;
and were it a fault,
where is the man to be found who is free from faults?
Hafiz, leave thou the “How” and the “Wherefore,”
and drink for a moment thy wine:
His wisdom hath withholden from us
what is the force of the words “How” and “Wherefore.”