The poem Mazra'-ē sabz-e falak ("the Green Farmland of the Sky") is a ghazal (love song) by the 14th-century Persian poet Hafez of Shiraz.
407 in the edition of Hafez's ghazals by Muhammad Qazvini and Qasim Ghani (1941), according to the usual alphabetical arrangement by rhyme.
At the beginning of the poem, Hafez is reminded by the sight of the night sky of his own failings and the unlikelihood of his reaching Heaven; but an adviser encourages him to be optimistic.
In the last three verses, Hafez turns his attention to the beauty of his beloved, and declares that the path of Love will lead to Heaven more surely than false and hypocritical religious practice.
Bashiri has a different view, namely that bexoftīdī "you fell asleep" is not addressed to Fortune, but by the poet to himself, as in the verse of Saadi quoted above.
The reply (goft "he said"), according to Bashiri, is not spoken by Fortune, but by an elder who (as often in Hafez's poems) gives advice and encouragement to his disciple.
[9] There is also internal rhyme between xoršīd, nowmīd (which in Hafez's day were pronounced with the vowel [-ēd])[11] and assonance with the [-īd] of bexosbīdī, damīd.
[12] Bashiri interprets this verse as follows: "If Man cultivates his potential for love, and thereby ascends to the heavens untrammeled as Christ did, his inner, spiritual light is enough to outshine all the cosmic luminaries.
[9] The xāl "mole" in the language of Persian love-poetry was considered a symbol of particular beauty on the face of the beloved (see Hafez's Shirazi Turk).
With the guidance of love, says the poet, man is able to transcend the limits of the phenomenal world (chashm-i bad) and enter the abode of the beloved."
[26] Bashiri explains this verse as that, even though he is no more significant than a grain of barley, "because man is invested with the love of the beloved, he has the potential to outshine the cosmos".
[9] Hafez's rejection of showy ascetism (zohd), hypocrisy (riyā or riā), and sham Sufism, represented by the woollen cloak (xerqe) proclaiming the Sufi's spirituality, is well described in Lewis (2002).
It was practical for travel, since dirt was not easily visible on it, and at the same time it was the color of mourning and distress; its intention was to show that the Sufi had separated himself from the world and what is in it.
[26] "If the poet were to remain in his khirqa-yi pashmīna, symbol of worldly values (or dīn), he too would be consumed like the rest of the cosmos.
Inspired by love, having thrown off the trammels of hypocrisy and the dervish cloak, he is now prepared to ascend pure and naked to heaven.
[32] Wickens finds that though a ghazal has a close-knit structure of thematic patterns, it lacks one aspect of Western art, namely the idea of development to a climax or conflict and its resolution.
[33] On the contrary, in his view, Persian art is more "radial" or "spoke-like" with the ideas arranged around a central focal point.