For years, my questing heart kept asking me
where on earth Jamshed's ancient grail could be.
In search of something it already had,
it supplicated strangers ceaselessly.
It sought a pearl that slipped the temporal shell
from wayward men that maunder by the sea.
Last night I brought the Wineshop's Sage my problem,
that where I had been blinded, he might see.
I saw him, laughing, lift a cup of wine
wherein a thousand visions answered me.
Said I to him: "When did God gift you with
this grail revealing all reality?"
Said he: "The day His Mind Almighty raised
the heavens' vault of lapis lazuli."
Said he: "Recall the smitten Al-Hallaj
they hanged on high upon the gallows tree...
His crime was that he told the world of things
meant to be contemplated privately.
His heart was gone for God, though God was there.
He cried O God because he could not see.
His heart held truth, as soil conceals a seed.
His mind put forth glossed leaflets, like a tree.
Moses' white hand would shame his sleights of hand
As once it foiled Pharaonic sorcery.
Were the Holy Ghost to lend its grace again,
others like Christ would help the blind to see."
Said I: "Why do the locks of beauty bind me?"
"Because of Hafiz' love-crazed heart" said he.