See How the Roses Burn!

“See How the Roses Burn!” was written by Shams-ud-din Muhammad, known commonly by his pen name, Hafez. Hafez lived in medieval Persia (modern-day Iran) in the fourteenth century and wrote hundreds of poems; some scholars believe he wrote more poems that have been lost. Hafez is immensely popular in Iran to this day. The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) idolized Hafez and popularized his works by translating them into German. Hafez was also an important influence on the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, who translated “See How the Roses Burn!” from Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall’s German into English.

“See How the Roses Burn!” is from the Divan of Hafez, a collection of poems likely compiled after Hafez’s death. This collection is a standard text in Iranian households today. The version of the poem referenced in this guide, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s English translation, is a monorhyme love poem of four lines (a quatrain). This form is called a rubāʿī (or chāhārgāna) in Persian poetry. Like all of Hafez’s works, “See How the Roses Burn!” is heavily informed by the poet’s Sufi spirituality, a mystical subsect of Islam. “See How the Roses Burn!” explores the classic Sufi themes of love, death, and connection to the divine.