1. O my sons! I have grown old and my vision fails me,
Yet I hope for the righteous and am content.

2. If I should perish, my deeds have built monuments,
That will remain for you - four lasting wonders:

3. A name, when the noble are mentioned, glorifies you,
Ancestral merit is profitable heritage;

4. Days that for their blessings on Hafiz do call
In gatherings, and thoughts that unite, recall;

5. Pastime from gain which will enrich you all,
When the soul, its hopes cut short, will disengage;

6. Advice in my breast flows clear for you still,
While of men I discern, or can hear, or see well;

7. I commend you to fear of the Godhead, for He
Gives whatever is wished to whom He will or denies.

8. By your father's kindness, obey his command!
For of sons the obedient are best in the land.

9. The great man, if his folk should oppose his desire,
Is impotent, purposeless, helpless to act;

10. Renounce all rancour - such ways suit you not.
For rancour in kinsmen is dangerous in fact.

11. Shun him who stirs up the slumbering seeds of dispute -
That sly reviler, himself to attack slow,

12. Who launches his snakes, that 'twixt you he may put
A war, as the pregnant of Ad' tribe laid low.

13. Twain that heal not their bosoms, though honey in plenty
They drink mingled with water in vessel designed.

14. Trust not a folk whose boy while still in his cradle
Is reared in the feud by the nurse left behind.

15. For their hate lives, outlasting their bogus profession,
And the mists on their spirits no efforts dispel.

16. A folk, when night darkens round them, like hedgehogs
Start up, and with slanders each other ilsmell

17. They are like to Zayd, who corrupted his comrades
Till severed their order and friendship lay torn.

18. Think not that your brothers are those you now view -
Their hearts heal of cankers on seeing you slain;

19. And two ranks of a lofty tribe, thrusting my hands there,
I opened the door of escape for my train;

20. And stood facing the insulter whose wrongdoing
From one fallen excuses no eloquence wins;

21. I repelled them, straight judging and making them drink
A draught that soon showed them sharp famine within;

22. Then you scattered, each seeming the runt of the litter
Whose nursing dam's udders are dry of milk;

23. And I knew well my palace was sickness' bare den,
And that Sirius' star-rise would thither me bring;

24. Then my daughters wept loud with the tearfullest plaining,
My spouse and my kinsfolk keened over me there,

25. While abandoned to death in the home I abhorred
The winds on my pillar of wood will career;

26. When I too am borne down my ordained path of doom,
Send ye a man whose heart's hard as iron to bear

27. (For fate strikes man's hopes down and danger creeps near)
To toil, strive, and gather, spend freely and care,

28. In earnest unwearied, no sluggard for food,
Till his tryst with the cistern he never can flee,

29. Till, their greeting of "Peace" finding none to reply,
Of hearing or prayer that man utterly bare,

30. Who gathers and gathers, but never will eat
What he gathered and hoarded with diligent care.