Have you heard the name 'Hafiz'?! Here are soaring flights of fancy and solid life lessons, from one of the greatest poets of all time-made new by two award-winning translators. This is the perfect introduction to Hafiz for all lovers of poetry and seekers of love, spirituality, and meaning.
I have this gem / And it's looking for a beholder
Hafiz's Little Book of Life is a lush collection of more than 250 selections from his lifework (his divan). Alongside a Quran, a copy of his divan can be found in average homes in Iran-where stars can be heard singing his poetry on the radio, and lines from his poems are quoted on the street. His poetry is sure to strike a chord in the hearts of readers everywhere.
This vital collection of mystical poetry focuses on the issues we encounter in everyday life. Each brief poem may be savored as an oasis of clarity in the hurried literacy of our time, or the entire book enjoyed in one sitting. Let the unforgettable words of Hafiz shine through you with their love, depth, and celebration of life.
This book also includes a vivid portrait of the poet and his times and an appendix on Hafiz as an oracle.
‘A dime a dozen’ as known in America, is perhaps equal to the English ‘cheap as chips’ but whatever the lingua franca of your choice in this series we hereby submit ‘A Rhyme a Dozen’ as 12 poems on many given subjects that are a well-rounded gathering, maybe even an essential guide, from the knowing pens of classic poets and their beautifully spoken verse to the comfort of your ears.1 - A Rhyme a Dozen - 12 Poets, 12 Poems, 1 Topic. Roses - An Introduction2 - A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns3 - The Rose Has Flushed Red by Hafiz4 - A Wild Rose by Alfred Austin5 - Laughing Rose by William Henry Davies6 - Amid the Roses by Alice Dunbar Nelson7 - The Secret Rose by W B Yeats8 - Sonnet 54 - O! How Much More Doth Beauty Beauteous Seem by William Shakespeare9 - The Rose by John Cournos10 - Roses of a Dream by Damon Runyon11 - No Rose That in a Garden Ever Grew by Edna St Vincent Millay12 - Where Roses Would Not Dare to Go by Emily Dickinson13 - Tis the Last Rose of Summer by Thomas Moore
Sleep. That most mysterious of times. The unconscious hours.Everyone needs it. Whether it's the recommended eight hours, forty winks, cat naps, power naps or other shades of blissful slumber. Sleep offers a respite from the rigors and challenges of the day. A chance for the brain to process what has happened and bring rest and recuperation before the cycle of daytime activity begins again.Also, perchance to dream or, if we are unlucky, the visitation of nightmares.But for some people sleep does not come easy. These can be wakeful hours of frustration or tedium where closing the eyes does not bring the closing of the mind and the slumber so keenly wanted.Part of the problem, in this increasingly frenetic 24/7 world is that we seem reluctant or unable to switch off enough to recuperate; we might miss something. But slumbered hours bring gains in health that far outweigh transitory loss.Our poets from Kipling and Swinburne through Hafiz, James Joyce, Edgar Allan Poe and a pillowful of others explore the wish to rest, to close the eyes and reside in the land of nod.
Islam is one of the world’s great religions and over the centuries one of its strongest voices. For Peace. For Tolerance. For the realisation that we are all in this World together. Whatever our individual beliefs much of its teachings are wise words for us all.As Islam moved from its Arabian heartland to a wider geographic area so its core message remained albeit adapted to different lands, to different ears. Poets were ever eager to provide an alternate way of delivering the ‘message’ in beautiful verse. Their simplicity was embracing, their ornateness a humble offering to greater forces.The poems here are both profound and wide-ranging. They give verse to thoughts that still preoccupy mankind as central to their message is love and humility. Civilisations may come and go, rise and fade, but culture and its arts linger on in oral histories and the written word.The contribution of these Mystic or Sufi poets comes in many forms. They view the world in ways that give us pause to reconsider our own. Obviously, translations come in many shades and hues and even if the translator colours the original meaning of the poem, the essential truths remain.In this volume we have gathered many of the most celebrated of these ancient and classical verses by poets of the caliber and brilliance of Rumi, Kabir, Hafiz and many others. Their wise words illuminate much of what we search for.
Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī is commonly known to us as Hafiz, the Persian poet who was born in Shiraz, Iran in either 1315 or 1317. The facts of much of his early life are unknown to us but it is said that, at an early age, he memorised many passages of the Quran and was therefore given the title of Hafiz, which means 'the memoriser or the safe keeper.' Hafiz mainly wrote lyric poetry or ghazals - an ideal form for expressing the ecstasy of the divine and the intoxicating mystical union with God. He was also outspoken on society’s hypocrisy but was supported by patronage during his lifetime from the court of Abu Ishak and succeeding regimes until, towards the end of his life, when he resided at the Court of Timur, more usually known to us as Tamerlane, the conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in modern day Iran and Central Asia.Certainly that support enabled Hafiz to devote himself to his writings. Surprisingly there is no definitive version of his collected works (or Dīvān); some editions run to a mere 573 poems others to just shy of a thousand. However, their beauty and wordplay illuminates why Hafiz was admired so much throughout the Islamic world even during his own lifetime. He remains one of the most celebrated of the Persian poets and his influence through poems, proverbs and sayings can be felt to this day. On various holidays, including 12th October in Iran, Hafiz Day is celebrated: Families will open his Dīvān at random and read aloud that poem, using it as a guide to what may happen next in their lives.Hafiz died in 1390. His mausoleum, Hāfezieh, is located in the Musalla Gardens in Shiraz.
The Rubá'iyát of Omar Khayyam, in the famous translation by Edward FitzGerald, remains one of the most popular poems. It expressed the fascination of Victorian England with the Orient. Here, it forms the main work in the first half, along with other shorter poems by other leading Persian and Indian figures, including Rumi, Sa'di and Rabindranath Tagore. The second half is devoted to works written by Western poets on the theme of the East with The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, an excerpt from Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh - one of the best-sellers of the early nineteenth century.
