What if my heart is sorrowful,
Sorrow looms over the entire world.
This pain is neither yours nor mine,
it’s every human’s inheritance, O love.
Even if you were mine, O love,
the world’s sorrows will remain—
embroilment in sin and tyranny’s hold—
could we just wish them all away?
Sorrow is lethal in every form,
be it mine or somebody else’s.
Tears only singe the heart—
this way or that, pain will always remain.
Why not own up the world’s suffering
and later ponder over the way out?
There’ll then be time for dreaming
and unravelling the riddle of dreams.
Carefree are all the affluent—
why are they always cheerful?
Let’s share their joy and happiness,
for aren’t they also like us?
Indeed, the struggle would be relentless,
heads will be bashed and blood will flow:
Blood will wash away all pain—
and as we perish so will end our suffering.
Quatrains
Last night, a fugitive memory of you slid into my heart
as though a wilderness was quietly touched by
springtide,
as though some breeze came soughing through a
desert,
or someone sick, for no reason, felt reclaimed.
Today my heart feels indebted to the sorrows of this
world.
Each breath is famished for lament.
How profoundly desolate is all concourse of life—
O pain of love, where are you today?
To My Love
Let me savour
those sweet lips, that innocent forehead
those beautiful eyes
that I may once again drown myself in fantasy.
Let a glance of yours gather up
my being into your lap
so I may rest, secure in this trap
never to return to life’s darkness;
all stains of my past yearnings may be
washed off,
ridding me of the sable forebodings of the
future,
sweeping away all my yesterdays and
tomorrows
into oblivion.
Give me, my love, that one eternal glance—
just once!
Given Away to Sorrow and Despair
Given away to sorrow and despair,
my heart often wilts away.
Your offering of pain, you forget
while I cherish what you have gifted me.
In the ambience of my heart, sorrow sprawls,
despair seeps into my soul.
Life’s illusion unfolds nature’s intent—
all I’m conscious of is youth slipping away.
Tonight
Don’t thrum those chords of sorrow tonight—
gone is all my anguished past,
and who knows what tomorrow holds out.
The bounds of past and future blurred,
who knows if dawn will ever break.
Futile this dreary existence—but no,
it’s possible to be a god tonight.
Don’t thrum those chords of sorrow tonight,
recall those tales of gloom
or lament over your fate.
Don’t let dread of the future haunt your mind,
nor shed tears over days gone by.
Don’t now ask how things went awry,
for I’m done with all complaining.
So no more those tales of sorrow—
not tonight.
A Scene
Terrace and door steeped in silence—
from the sky flows the river of desolation.
The moon’s tragic tale of light
immersed in the dust of highways.
Semi-darkness in the chambers of night—and
the melody of life’s lyre played out
in faint, elegiac strains.
My Friend
Those which were the soul of my fancy and verse,
lent their crimson to my thoughts, my deeds,
with whose effulgence glowed the moon and stars,
brought such courage to our love’s frenzy—
where have those longings gone, my friend?
Those insatiate eyes, those waiting pathways,
those sighs in the heart for restraint
those nights of waiting, endless and dark—
those bedrooms, half-awake, those velvet arms—
mere yarns they were, where have they vanished,
my friend?
Sizzling in life’s artery is spring’s blood
the soul’s strings entangled with past sorrows.
Let us go now and light up the house of the beloved
for lying in wait are the catacombs of past loves—
loves which have perished, my friend.
Ask Me Not for That Old Fervour
Ask me not for that old fervour, my love.
I had then imagined
that your love would spark off my being,
Counterpoise the giant agony of the world—
that your beauty would bring every spring to
eternal blossom.
And what else was there to cherish but
your eyes?
Once you were mine
would not fate itself bow to me?
I had only willed it all
but it was not to be,
for there are sorrows other than heartache,
joys other than love’s rapture.
If there are spells of those dark, savage,
countless centuries—
bodies robed in silk, satin and velvet—
then aren’t there also bodies
traded down streets and alleyways—
bodies smeared in dust, bathed in blood
bodies emerging from ovens of sickness
bodies with pus oozing from chronic sores?
If these images also seize my eye
even though your beauty still enthrals,
it’s because there are sorrows other than
heartache,
joys other than love’s rapture
So ask me not for that old fervour, my love.
To My Rival
O my rival, with you are associated my memories
of that face which made my heart a fairyland,
for whose love I’d forgotten this world,
letting its affairs sound like a yarn.
To your footfalls are known those pathways
along which her beauty has showered its gifts
along which have passed the caravans of her charm—
she, whom my eyes worshipped in vain.
With you have gambolled those love-laden winds
in which still lingers the sad fragrance of her dress.
On you has fallen, from her terrace,
that moonface’s glow which still carries the pain of
past nights.
You have known that forehead, those cheeks, those lips
fantasizing which I’ve squandered away my life.
On you have risen those spellbinding eyes—
only you’d know why my life has been an endless
waste.
We have both shared the favours of love’s sorrows—
far too many to count.
What we’ve learnt or lost in this affair,
I could explain to no one but you.
Humility I’ve learnt, sympathy for the poor,
learnt the meaning of despair, suffering and pain;
learnt to comprehend the miseries of the oppressed,
the meaning of cold sighs, of pallid faces.
Whenever those hapless creatures sit together to cry,
in whose eyes tears, bitterly shed, fall asleep,
&
nbsp; and those destitute upon whose morsels swoop down
the vultures hovering above, poised on their wing—
whenever is traded in the market place the flesh of the
labourer,
and on the highways flows the blood of the poor,
a sort of fire upsurges in my bosom
and I lose all hold over my heart.
Loneliness
Is someone out there again,
O my aggrieved heart?
No, perhaps some passer-by, bound elsewhere.
The night is snapping at the seams,
scattered is the cluster of stars
and down the hallways
the drowsy tapers are gasping away.
Tired of the long wait,
every highway has fallen asleep,
every footprint blurred by the alien dust.
Put out the lights,
Put away the cups and wine—
and those doors which kept vigil all night,
lock them all.
Nobody will come here now—
No one!
I’ve Tried Camouflaging My Love’s Secret
I’ve tried camouflaging my love’s secret—
but even afflicting my heart was of no avail.
What else is there for me to know
after losing my heart to you?
She’s mine, and yet not quite;
I’ve tried making her my own.
Today I saw in her eyes something
unnoticed by anyone around.
O Faiz, I’d longed for sorrow’s fruition,
but not even love could do it for me.
Again, I Am a Rival of Spring
Again, I am a rival of spring—
such is my sorrow today over friends lost.
Futile was life, but not so much—
today something seems to have faded out of my life.
Making it to your doorstep and then returning—
wasn’t that tainting the fair name of love?
One moves away from the entire world
when one sits close beside you.
Never did you give up your indifference,
even though I’ve forsaken all yearning for you.
O Faiz, let things take their own course—
you’d better keep spinning out your verses.
A Few Days More, My Love
A few days more, my love, just a few days—
are we fated to live in tyranny’s shadow.
Let us endure a little longer—
oppression, writhing and tears.
All this is our legacy; we are helpless.
Body imprisoned, emotions shackled,
thought chained and speech censored.
It’s just our courage that keeps us going.
Life is a beggar’s tunic that picks on
patches of pain each moment.
But now the days of tyranny are numbered.
Just a little patience,
since the days of entreaty are nearly done.
In this scorched wasteland of life,
we’re destined to live, but not like this.
This nameless, heavy oppression of alien hands,
we may have to endure today, but not forever.
This dust of torments smearing your beauty—
this dwelling on frustrations of our passing youth,
this futile, throbbing pain of moonlit nights,
this vain writhing of the heart, the body’s helpless cry—
a few days more, my love, just a few days!
Dogs
Tramping about the streets aimlessly, these dogs,
born to the prerogative of beggary—
their only treasure is the world’s scorn
their only wages, the world’s reproof.
Not a moment’s respite, day or night—
dirt their abode, drains their rest-houses.
If roused, they may be set one against the other,
just dangle before them a morsel of bread—
they who suffer everybody’s kicks,
who’d tire and die of starvation.
If these destitutes were ever stirred up,
man would forget his imperiousness.
If only they willed, they’d reign supreme
for they could chew up even the bones of their
masters.
All this—
if only someone would awaken them to their ignominy,
shake their sagging tails
to action!
Speak Up!
Speak up, for your lips are not sealed
and your words are still your own.
This upright body is yours—
speak, while your soul is still your own.
Look there, in that smithy,
its red oven, fierce flames,
the padlocks are already opening their mouths
and each fetter is skirting around.
Speak up now, for time’s running out.
Before your body and mind fade away,
tell us, for truth is not yet dead.
Speak
whatever you have to say!
Poesy’s Domain
This evening, forlorn—its embers smouldering.
Out of the moon’s spring will emerge night, cleansed—
and my eager eyes will be rewarded
as my impatient hands touch yours.
Is it her stole, her cheeks or her dress—
something surely lends the screen such colour.
I wonder if in the deep, faint shadow of your locks
there still glimmers that eardrop.
Today again, there’ll be the same splendour
of that bewitching beauty,
the same drowsy eyes, the same streak of collyrium
on her cheek the mellowed tint of talc,
on her sandalwood palms a blurred line of henna.
This alone is the domain of my thoughts—
my verse, its sole quintessence.
Till today, in the shadow of centuries, sanguine
and sable,
what has been the lot of Adam’s progeny?
In the daily battle-array of death and life,
how will it fare with us, how had it fared with
our ancestors?
The jostling crowds of these glittering cities—
why do they sustain themselves on a mere death-wish?
These luscious corn-fields bursting with youth—
why do they yield hunger alone?
These impregnable, mysterious walls all around,
within which
were snuffed out the lamps of countless young
hearts.
At every step, these abattoirs of dreams
whose reflections have ignited the minds of multitudes.
All these themes are there indeed—and many more;
but the gently parting lips of that beauty—
and oh, the alluring contours of her body—
now tell me yourself, could there be such
witchery elsewhere?
Well, for me this is it—
a poet’s mental province can be none other than this.
We People
Carrying in the hallways of our hearts
rows of extinguished lamps
bored and fearful of sunlight
like the mercurial image of the beloved’s beauty,
hugging our darkness, wrapped up in it.
Our concern—loss and gain
beginning and end—
the same futile curiosity, the same pointless quest.
Fatigued by the greyness of the daily scene,
grieving over the remembrance of things past,
enervated by the dread of the future.
Unquenched thoughts, never satiated;
burnt-out tears that never well up in the eyes—
a harsh pain that never melts into a song,
never oozes from the heart’s dark crevice
s.
And a quest, confused, ethereal, for some panacea,
a craving for the wilderness and the prison,
a quest for the ripped collar.
Highway
A sad highway, stretching endlessly—
its eyes riveted on the remote horizon.
The cold earth of its bosom
overspread with its grey beauty,
as though some woman grieving
in her desolate home,
immersed in thoughts
of union with her beloved—
each pore, each limb
limp with desire.
Quatrains
What if my pen and paper have been snatched away,
I’ve dipped my fingers in the heart’s blood,
What if my lips are sealed,
I’ve lent my tongue to each link in the chain.
Eyes drunk on your beauty, I rise—
the air feels spruced up like your robe.
The breeze must have wafted through your
bed-chamber,
so redolent of your body is my dawn.
Hold On, Restless Heart
Darkness that’s billowing up—
as though from every vein of the night, blood
gushes forth.
The pulse of life throbs
as the intoxication of both worlds fades away.
Hot blood of the night,
let it gush forth still more—after all,
this very darkness powders the dawn’s cheeks.
It will soon be day—hold on, restless heart.
The chains still clank behind the screen of music,
the package of goods and chattel still holds its
inexorable sway.
In the red wine, even the tears get intermingled;
there’s still
in the staggering feet the gesture of tamed greeting.
Let the frenzy of your lovers swell ever so high—
The Best of Faiz Page 2