  Thank Allah! the fast is over; Thank Allah! the feast is here; And at last each jolly lover Of the vintage lives in clover Through the sweetest of the year. Hide thy visage, sour ascetic; Go thy ways, thy hour has past; While all revellers poetic Join in union sympathetic, Drinking full and drinking fast. Why should I incur reproaches If I like a stoup of wine? Thank Allah! the hour approaches When the jolly tapster broaches Liquor more than half divine. He that drains a decent flagon At the wine house, can ignore How the tongues of envy wag on. Think how dull their days must drag on, Who run up no wine-house score. For Allah’s illumination, Shining on this rosy tide, Finds no smug dissimulation, Calling out for reprobation, Fair without and foul inside. Clean our lives, our language civil, Alkoran’s law understood; And we never let the devil Catch us calling good things evil, And the things of evil good. Where’s the harm of my carouses With the vineyard’s sanguine flood? If I drink till dawn arouses All the Muftis from their houses, Do I drink my brother’s blood? Hafiz, cease thy soul to trouble With the wherefore and the how; Laugh and love, for life’s a bubble; Drink till everything grows double, And the roses leave your brow. |
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