Sonnets from Hafez & Other Verses

Chapter 7: 5 ON A HILL

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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.

5

ON A HILL

Eyes that o’er the landscape fly,
Over dale & wood & stream
To the cloud-realms of the sky;

Eyes that wander still & dream,
Hopes that ever forward press
Seeking lovelier loveliness;

All the world is yours to roam
—Searching eye & swiftling thought—
Nowhere can ye make your home;

Not where peace so vainly sought
Bower’d in the valley lies,
Nor content’s small villages;

Nor can pleasure’s garish dress
Tempt you to a mean caress
—Thoughts that will not rest nor stay—

Ever do ye tell her nay;
Still ye wander—‘Where, O say,
Lies our vision’d loveliness?’