Please read and put into practice: I would not have a care if they took away my pen and paper for I have dipped my fingers in the inkpot of my heart. I would not have a care if they sealed my lips shut for I have secreted my voice in every link of every manacle. A Few Days More Only a few days, dear one, a few days more. Under oppression’s shadows condemned to breathe, Still for a time we must bear them, and tears, and endure What our forefathers, not our own faults, bequeath: Fettered limbs, each impulse held on a chain, Minds in bondage, our words all watched and set down Courage still nerves us, or how should we still exist, Now with existence only a beggar’s gown, Tattered, and patched every hour with new rags of pain? Yes, but to tyranny not many hours are left now; Patience a little, few hours of lamenting remain. In this parched air of an age that desert sands choke We must stay now—not forever and ever stay! Under this load beyond words of a foreign yoke We must submit for a while—not for ever submit! Dust of affliction that clings to your beauty today, Crosses unnumbered that mar our few mornings of youth, Torment of silver nights, a pain with no cure, Heartache unanswered, the body’s long cry of despair— Only a few days, dear one, a few days more. A lover to his beloved This path of memory, On which you have walked for so long, Will end, if your were to proceed a few steps more, Where it diverts to oblivion’s desolation And from there onwards neither you nor I exist. My eyes, still on you, wait that any instant, You may return, pass on, or just look back. Yet, I am aware, That it is merely an illusion: When I believe that if my eyes ever embrace you somewhere, A new path shall erupt there; And a similar encounter shall resume; Under the fall of your locks, The journey of my arms. Then, the other situation is just a false, Because my heart knows: There is no diversion, desolation or hiding, Which may conceal my beloved from me. So, while this path erupts under your feet, Let it be so; And if you never even look back, It doesn’t matter. A Prison Evening Each star a rung, night comes down the spiral staircase of the evening. The breeze passes by so very close as if someone just happened to speak of love. In the courtyard, the trees are absorbed refugees embroidering maps of return on the sky. On the roof, the moon - lovingly, generously - is turning the stars into a dust of sheen. From every corner, dark-green shadows, in ripples, come towards me. At any moment they may break over me, like the waves of pain each time I remember this separation from my lover. This thought keeps consoling me: though tyrants may command that lamps be smashed in rooms where lovers are destined to meet, they cannot snuff out the moon, so today, nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed, no poison of torture make me bitter, if just one evening in prison can be so strangely sweet, if just one moment anywhere on this earth. A word Today, again, the mind searches for a word: A word Imbibed with wine or filled with venom, Replete with love, or fraught with dread. A word of affection: Like a joyful glance – One which carries the caress of soft, warm lips. Brilliant – like a surge of the molten gold. The very spring of excitement in the lovers’ embrace. A word of aversion: Like a wrathful sword – One which forever devastates the oppressors’ strongholds. Dark – like the night in a haunted graveyard. The very utterance of it should burn my lips black. Again the sun returns Again the sun returns, bathing the world in its journey, Again the morning light goes hand in glove with the sky. Again the fire roars in every merry song, Again the flames leap from every weeping eye. Again a madman leaves, having set fire to his house And every path says something to every passer by. That colour is implicated in the garden’s very air, Obscured the prison walls from the limits of the eye. The glasses will rattle, whether the liquor flows or not The clouds will thunder, whether it rains or stays dry. Don’t worry about shoes now, better look to your turban This wave that laps at your feet will soon be head high. All the way How long was that night of separation’s agony! With all my trust in that promise by you I swallowed the night’s bitterness, my dear love, My dear! O’ my true beloved! With all my trust in that promise by you I tinkled the chains as if they were cymbals, Sometimes I put on the links as my ear-rings,* At others I assumed that the fetters were my anklets. For my love for you I offered the flesh from my body, ** With ravens, as the messengers, I sent you my call. ‘This night soon ends, my Love shall then some. I looked at the pathway, time and again. None arrived, except the people with jeers, Nothing came, but a downpour of scorn. Today you must rebuke these scoffs, my darling; Come to my home, my long-separated beloved. When the dawn arises I yearn to exclaim: Thanks goodness, joy has come to my home again! The darling whose promise I trusted without sway, That darling, also, kept the promise all the way. Ashes and blossoms Today, again, On the string spun from grief and pain, I threaded blossoms; drawn from your memory. And I plucked, From the desert of abandoned love, Buds which bloomed; when we were together. Then, I placed on your doorsteps, Offering to the days of your memory. Laid, Side by side, in the vase called Desire, The ashes of separation, the blossoms from our love. August 1952 Its still distant, but there are hints of springtime: some flowers, aching to bloom, have torn open their collars. In this era of autumn, almost winter, leaves can still be heard: their dry orchestras play, hidden in corners of the garden. Night is still where it was, but colors at times take flight, leaving red feathers of dawn on the sky. Dont regret our breaths use as air, our bloods as oil -- some lamps at last are burning in the night. Tilt your cup, dont hesitate! Having given up all, we dont need wine. Weve freed ourselves, made Time irrelevant. When imprisoned man opens his eyes, cages will dissolve: air, fire, water, earth -- all have pledged such dawns, such gardens to him. Your feet bleed, Faiz, something surely will bloom as you water the desert simply by walking through it. Be Near Me You who demolish me, you whom I love, be near me. Remain near me when evening, drunk on the blood of skies, becomes night, in the other a sword sheathed in the diamond of stars. Be near me when night laments or sings, or when it begins to dance, its stell-blue anklets ringing with grief. Be here when longings, long submerged in the heart’s waters, resurface and everyone begins to look: Where is the assasin? In whose sleeve is hidden the redeeming knife? And when wine, as it is poured, is the sobbing of children whom nothing will console– when nothing holds, when nothing is: at that dark hour when night mourns, be near me, my destroyer, my lover me, be near me Be near me now Be near me now, My tormenter, my love, be near me— At this hour when night comes down, When, having drunk from the gash of sunset, darkness comes with the balm of musk in its hands, its diamond lancets, When it comes with cries of lamentation, with laughter with songs; Its blue-gray anklets of pain clinking with every step. At this hour when hearts, deep in their hiding places, Have begun to hope once more, when they start their vigil For hands still enfolded in sleeves; When wine being poured makes the sound of inconsolable children who, though you try with all your heart, cannot be soothed. When whatever you want to do cannot be done, When nothing is of any use;— At this hour when night comes down, When night comes, dragging its long face, dressed in mourning, Be with me, My tormenter, my love, be near me. Before You Came Before you came, things were as they should be: the sky was the dead-end of sight, the road was just a road, wine merely wine. Now everything is like my heart, a colour at the edge of blood: the grey of your absence, the colour of poison, or thorns, the gold when we meet, the season ablaze, the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames, and the black when you cover the earth with the coal of dead fires. And the sky, the road, the glass of wine? The sky is a shirt wet with tears, the road a vein about to break, and the glass of wine a mirror in which the sky, the road, the world keep changing. Don’t leave now that you’re here— Stay. So the world may become like itself again: so the sky may be the sky, the road a road, and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine. Before You Came Before you came things were just what they were: the road precisely a road, the horizon fixed, the limit of what could be seen, a glass of wine was no more than a glass of wine. With you the world took on the spectrum radiating from my heart: your eyes gold as they open to me, slate the color that falls each time I lost all hope. With your advent roses burst into flame: you were the artist of dried-up leaves, sorceress who flicked her wrist to change dust into soot. You lacquered the night black. As for the sky, the road, the cup of wine: one was my tear-drenched shirt, the other an aching nerve, the third a mirror that never reflected the same thing. Now you are here again—stay with me. This time things will fall into place; the road can be the road, the sky nothing but sky; the glass of wine, as it should be, the glass of wine. Before You Came Before you came, all things were what they are— The sky sight’s boundary, the road a road, The glass of wine a glass of wine; since then, Road, wineglass, colour of heaven, all have taken The hues of this heart ready to melt into blood— Now golden, as the solace of meeting is, Now grey, the livery of despondent hours, Or tint of yellowed leaves, of garden trash, Or scarlet petal, a flowerbed all ablaze: Colour of poison, colour of blood, or shade Of sable night. Sky, highroad, glass of wine— The first a tear-stained robe, the next a nerve Aching, the last a mirror momently altering.... Now you have come, stay here, and let some colour, Some month, some anything, keep its own place, And all things once again be their own selves, The sky sight’s bound, the road a road, wine wine. Before You Came Before you came things were just what they were: the road precisely a road, the horizon fixed, the limit of what could be seen, a glass of wine was no more than a glass of wine. With you the world took on the spectrum radiating from my heart: your eyes gold as they open to me, slate the color that falls each time I lost all hope. With your advent roses burst into flame: you were the artist of dried-up leaves, sorceress who flicked her wrist to change dust into soot. You lacquered the night black. As for the sky, the road, the cup of wine: one was my tear-drenched shirt, the other an aching nerve, the third a mirror that never reflected the same thing. Now you are here again—stay with me. This time things will fall into place; the road can be the road, the sky nothing but sky; the glass of wine, as it should be, the glass of wine. Before You Came Before you came, all things were what they are— The sky sight’s boundary, the road a road, The glass of wine a glass of wine; since then, Road, wineglass, colour of heaven, all have taken The hues of this heart ready to melt into blood— Now golden, as the solace of meeting is, Now grey, the livery of despondent hours, Or tint of yellowed leaves, of garden trash, Or scarlet petal, a flowerbed all ablaze: Colour of poison, colour of blood, or shade Of sable night. Sky, highroad, glass of wine— The first a tear-stained robe, the next a nerve Aching, the last a mirror momently altering.... Now you have come, stay here, and let some colour, Some month, some anything, keep its own place, And all things once again be their own selves, The sky sight’s bound, the road a road, wine wine. Be Near Me You who demolish me, you whom I love, be near me. Remain near me when evening, drunk on the blood of the skies, becomes night, in its one hand a perfumed balm, in the other a sword sheathed in the diamond of stars. Be near me when night laments or sings, or when it begins to dance, its steel-blue anklets ringing with grief. Be here when longings, long submerged in the hearts waters, resurface and when everyone begins to look: Where is the assassin? In whose sleeve is hidden the redeeming knife? And when wine, as it is poured, is the sobbing of children whom nothing will console - when nothing holds, when nothing is: at that dark hour when night mourns, be near me, my destroyer, my lover, be near me. Be Near Me You who demolish me, you whom I love, be near me. Remain near me when evening, drunk on the blood of the skies, becomes night, in its one hand a perfumed balm, in the other a sword sheathed in the diamond of stars. Be near me when night laments or sings, or when it begins to dance, its steel-blue anklets ringing with grief. Be here when longings, long submerged in the hearts waters, resurface and when everyone begins to look: Where is the assassin? In whose sleeve is hidden the redeeming knife? And when wine, as it is poured, is the sobbing of children whom nothing will console - when nothing holds, when nothing is: at that dark hour when night mourns, be near me, my destroyer, my lover, be near me. Both Universes Having lost both his universe in thy love, he departs after having spent as if some night of hell. Dreary is the house of wine and gloomy are the goblets, your departure has as if displeased the flowering spell. I have been granted the leisure to sin but merely four days, In that I have seen the guts of that invincible. The world prevented me from reminiscing over you, more mystifying than you are the woes of labour. Today she did smile though only unwittingly Faiz, ask not about the unrest it created in the heart of a quiet soul.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 15:45:01 +0000
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