I am old, and sometimes

I am old, and sometimes my heart recalls my youth
My nightingale of longing desires to sing again
My resolve rises to take the instrument of ghazal in hand
Yet my endurance confesses weakness and frailty

A nightingale still laments within my chest, that this meadow
Even reconciled with autumn, still scatters blossoms
We sat with the grief of love’s burning, and still
Parvin’s eye continues its twinkling play

Our flute is silent, yet this devilish Venus still
With the same passion and melody shepherds the night
If the earth turns to smoke and air, still the sky
With its arrogance continues to be the sky

Years have passed since my companion departed, yet still
Within me he lives and continues life
Despite all forgetfulness, it seems to torment me
My memory conspires with its own recollections

Fruitless each year I dream of spring, yet
When spring arrives, it brings me autumn instead
I was a child, secretly aged and weakened
What fate does to us, it does in secrecy

A century comes to its end, and the heavens, archivist
Place our era’s book into the archives
Shahriar, tell hearts of the kind not to break ours
Else the judge in destiny will act unkindly