Sonnets from Hafez & Other Verses

Chapter 3: 1

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About This Book

A compact collection of lyric sonnets and short poems ranging from intimate meditations to more formal exercises. Many pieces probe impermanence, longing, and the pursuit of beauty, alternating quiet elegies on loss and weariness with assertions of resilience, desire, and contemplative rest. The final sequence adapts and reimagines Persian odes, evoking Hafez’s spirit rather than literal translation. Poetic forms shift between sonnet-like structures and freer lyrics, unified by musical diction, images of nature and wandering, and a tone that balances elegiac restraint with vivid sensory detail.

1

When sunlight faileth,
& day’s glow is gone;
When chill mist traileth
Where warm splendour shone;

When summer’s pleasure
Dieth,—dieth too
The transient treasure
That with life up-grew

& none may herit,
Where then wilt thou turn,
O vagrant spirit,
That no home didst earn;

When none replieth
Of thy friends so true,
When sweet Joy crieth
‘Adieu, love, adieu!’