SOURCE: "Hafez and Poetic Unity through Verse Rhythms," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1, January, 1972, pp. 1-10.

In the following essay, Hillman attempts to explain the musical elements of Hafiz's verse, contending that it is the inability of translators to adequately capture these rhythms in English that makes their work unsatisfying.

The following is an impressionistic translation of a poem by Hafez (fourteenth century A.D.), the premier lyric poet in the Persian language:

(1) Your entwined tresses,
 I'm ever drunk with the brought breeze of
   them.
 Your sorcerer's eyes,
 I'm ever lost to self because of them.
 (2) My long vigil—lord—oh,
 Will it raise a night time vision
 Of your brows, my vigil shrine,
 Before which the candles of my eyes glow—
 (3) Their black orbs I hold dear:
 Mirrors of your midnight Hindu mole.
 (4) The world is yours to immortalize:
 Bid the breeze blow aside your...