the caravans of a hundred thousand torch-bearing
stars;
a thousand moons have, under its shadow, wailed
over the loss of their lustre.
This night is that pain’s tree
which towers higher than you or me;
but from this very tree have fallen
the pallid leaves of these few moments;
tangled in your locks, they have blossomed into
scarlet.
From this very dew have fallen
a few drops of silence on your forehead
and are now strung into pearls.
Ebony dark is the night
but truly in this darkness emerges
that river of blood which is my cry,
and just under its shadow is that illuminator,
the rich wave of gold—
your eye.
That sorrow which is smouldering, this moment,
in the rose-garden of your arms
(that sorrow which is the night’s fruition),
if tempered a little more in the fire of our sighs,
would turn into a flame.
From the bow of every dark branch,
whatever arrows have pierced my heart,
I’ve plucked them out, forged each into a hatchet.
The dawn of the ill-fated and the heart-broken
is not up there in the sky,
but right here where you and I stand—
here glows the bright horizon of dawn.
It is here that sorrow’s sparks have blossomed
into a garden of the crimson dusk,
and this is where the hatchets of fatal afflictions
have turned, rows within rows,
into the fiery garlands of sunbeams.
This very sorrow, boon of the night,
has lent us a faith for the future—
faith, far more bountiful than pain
and dawn, far grander than night.
Quatrains
At last I’ll be rid of all concern for pain or loss—
also rid of the need to beseech all and sundry.
Never mind if there’ll be no wine in hell—
at least the preacher will be nowhere around.
Grant me not so much bounty today that tomorrow
night, without your locks,
may become too wearisome.
Yearning is a great thing, O friend,
but union with the beloved is not just a matter of
longing.
Lending Colour to the Flowers
Lending hues to the flowers, blows the
spring breeze,
Now do come to let the garden blossom.
Sad is the cage, O friends, say something to the breeze,
somewhere, for God’s sake, should be some talk
of the beloved today;
let the day break from the curl of your lips
and let the night go fragrant with the crest of your
locks.
Let the heart be humble—but deep is the bond of love;
if I invoke your name, many will come to commiserate
with me.
Whatever befell me, let it be; at least my tears,
O night of separation, had surely brightened you up.
Whenever my frenzy was summoned before my
love,
I appeared, my collar in shreds, as my lone asset.
No resting place, O Faiz, appealed all through the
journey;
as I emerged from my beloved’s lane, I headed straight
for the gallows.
Quatrains
With the crack of dawn was sprayed in the sky
the roseate of your cheeks,
and with nightfall came down the cascade
of your tresses on the world’s face.
All through the night, my wild heart craves
for you—
in every cry the harmony of your kind word.
Each morning my eye sees in your lips,
time and again, the tints of the tulip and the rose.
Casement
How many crosses are fixed in my casement,
each tinged with the blood of its own messiah,
each yearning for union with God:
on one is sacrificed the spring’s cloud,
the other held for the murder of the bright moon.
If for one the fruit-laden bough is beheaded,
for the other is killed the morning breeze.
Each new day, these gods of grace and beauty
visit my sorrowland, soaked in blood,
and each day, right before my eyes,
are carried away their martyred bodies.
Pain Will Creep in Soft-footed
After a while, when my lonesome heart will once
again
be siezed by angst, how shall I cure the loneliness?
Pain will then creep in soft-footed, carrying a red
taper—
that pain which throbs beyond the heart’s precincts.
As this flame will leap forth in the side,
on the heart’s wall will be rekindled every mark—
somewhere a lock’s whorl, somewhere a cheek’s curve,
somewhere the wilderness of parting, the joy
of seeing the beloved, a kind word, or love’s assent.
Then will I say, O my heart,
this thought, the beloved of your loneliness,
is only a visitant for a moment—
so how can your problem be solved?
After it’s gone, will rise enraged
savage shadows, which will linger on
for me to battle with all through the night.
This is a war, O my heart, not a frolic;
all your life’s enemies, all your assassins—
this harsh night, these shadows, this loneliness.
There’s nothing common between pain and war,
O my heart.
Fetch me an ember of fierce passion and kindle it,
get me from somewhere the mighty flame of wrath
with its heat, its dynamism, its puissance.
Maybe a limb of our tribe is waiting
on the other side of the ramparts of darkness.
Let’s alert our comrades of our presence
through fiery martial songs.
Well, even if they don’t reach us, they’ll call out to us
to intimate how far the dawn still is.
Quatrains
The night’s fading away in the bosoms—
stoke up the fire in the goblet.
Take care of lovers’ hearts—
these are the months for flowers to bloom.
Today loneliness, like an old friend, has come
to do some cupbearing for me, at dusk.
We’re both lying in wait for the moon to rise—
and your reflections to flash in every shadow.
Some Lover to His Beloved
This path of memory on which you have been trudging
for ages
if you press on a few steps further, it will wind off
to where one encounters the wilderness of oblivion,
at the bend beyond which neither I exist, nor you.
The eyes hold their breath and wonder
if you’d return, pass by, or look back.
Although the eyes know it’s all an illusion
still, if they encounter you again somewhere,
a new pathway will branch out
where will begin again, as in the past,
the journey of your lock’s shadow
and my outstretched arm.
The other thing is also a delusion, that the heart
knows
there’s no curve, no wilderness, no ambush
behind whose screen could sink my sailing moon.
Well, it’s good that this journey with you runs on;
it wouldn’t matter even if you didn’t look back.
; Ever Since I Have Been Waiting for You
Ever since I have been waiting for you,
buoyed up on hope,
neither has the night any grievance against the day
nor the day against the night.
Anybody else’s pain, I attribute to you,
and you are the cause of my grudge against anyone.
Ever since my restless heart has gone out of control,
my eyes have learnt to converse with you,
deferentially.
If it’s a spark, let it leap out,
if a bud, let it blossom—
diverse are my demands from your crimson lips.
Where have they gone, those who kept awake during the
night of separation—
since when has the morning-star been engaged in a
colloquy?
Quatrain
Not a glimpse of you—no word, no message
no ground for solace, yet hope unbounded.
Yearning for the beloved, the eye’s mood, pain’s
hue—don’t you
ask me anything today, the heart’s brimful
with despair.
Evening
It’s as though each tree is a temple—
ruined, unlit, old—
seeking, for long, justification for its decadence.
Every terrace ripped apart, every door at its last breath.
The sky a priest, sits under each terrace,
body smeared with ash, forehead hued with vermilion,
head drooping, mute—nobody knows since when.
It’s as though there’s some conjuror behind the screen
who has flung across the sky a net of magic.
So closely linked is time’s hem with that of
the evening
that it may never fade away, nor darkness
ever descend—
now this night will never pass, nor dawn ever break.
The sky is propped up on the hope that
the spell may soon be over,
the chain of silence snap,
time’s hem come unstuck—
that some conch may blare out for help, some
ankle-bells speak out,
some idol come alive, some dusky beauty unveil her face.
Quatrain
We are the enfeebled, what’s there to ask about our
assets, O Censors.
All that life has proffered us, we’re holding up
for scrutiny:
In the hem a handful of the heart’s dust, in the
goblet the blood of yearning’s wine
Look, here we empty our hem, and here we upturn
the wine-glass.
When Will Pain Cease?
When will pain cease, O heart, when will the night
pass away?
It was rumoured that she’d come; and it would soon
be dawn.
When will life turn into blood, and tears become
pearls?
And when will you be heard, O my tearful eye?
When will the flowers bloom, and when will the
tavern go heady?
When will morning inspire verse, and when will
evening bring us together?
No preacher, no ascetic, no counsellor, no assassin—
how will it now fare with the lovers in town?
How long will I keep looking for you, O my beloved?
When is that doomsday ordained, surely you’d know.
This Patient Breathless
This patient breathless, why don’t you reclaim him?
A strange messiah are you, why don’t you cure him?
Why is there no recompense for the aching night
of separation?
Why is there no reward for the sacrifice of love’s
frenzy?
Will you dispense justice after mankind is
wiped out?
If you are a true judge, why not proclaim
doomsday today?
Call in the scar of pain, you discerners,
to bring up the testimony of speech and feeling,
and you music-makers, why don’t you strike up
the song?
How long will frenzy’s vow hold back its hand?
O lovers, why don’t you point to the collar torn?
O Faiz, nobody compels you to endure the
heart’s ravage;
if she’s your heart’s enemy, why don’t you forget her?
End of the Rain of Stones
Suddenly, today, sundered from my vision’s thread,
lay splintered in the sky the sun and the moon.
Now there’ll be no light or darkness anywhere.
Extinguished, after me, like the heart, is the path of
commitment—
friends, how will it now fare with the caravan of pain?
Let somebody else now nurture the garden of sorrow;
friends, now has dried up the dew of the grieving eye,
now stalled frenzy’s uproar, the rain of stones.
Today the pathway’s dust carried the tint of the
beloved’s lips,
and there stands unfurled, in her lane, the banner of
my blood.
Let’s see which ones will be called out after I’m gone—
‘Let’s see who stands up to the fatal intoxication
of love,
for I still hear, from the cupbearer, the call for another
round, after I’m gone.’
Where Will You Go?
In just a short while, the moon will be robbed
on every terrace; reflections will fade away,
mirrors look insatiated; and from the sky’s moist eye
will drop down on the dust all the stars, one by one.
In the jaded chambers of hope,
someone will fold up his loneliness, another spread
it out.
This is the moment of betrayal,
of brashness—this moment when
you’ll be able to remember nobody else but yourself.
This is the mood for renouncing the world—
the moment of rendezvous’ end.
Where will you go this moment, O my vagrant heart?
This moment, nobody is anybody’s friend—so let it be;
nor will you meet anyone now—so let it be;
and even if you do, you will only regret it.
Hold back a little longer then, till dawn’s lancet
opens up, like a wound, each eye
and every victim of the fatigue of the night’s end
will insist on a friendly meeting,
forgetting the night’s distress.
In Your Ocean Eyes
The fringe of day, dusk
where the two hours of time meet—
neither night nor day, neither today nor tomorrow.
One moment eternal, another just smoke—
on this day’s fringe, for a moment or two
the fervour of lips,
the ardour of arms,
this union of ours, neither true nor false.
Why say a false thing
when in your ocean eyes
will sink this evening’s sun?
Then everyone will sleep blissfully in his house
and the traveller will wend his way.
The Colour of the Moment
Before you came, everything was what it is—
the sky, vision-bound
the pathway, the wine-glass.
And now the wine-glass, the pathway, the sky’s tint—
everything bears the colour of my heart
till all melts into blood.
Sometimes the golden tinge, sometimes the hue of the
joy of seeing you
sometimes ashen, the shade of the dreary moment—
the colour of yellow leaves, of thorn and trash,
of the crimson petals of the flower-beds aglow,
the tin
t of poison, of blood, of sable night.
The sky, the pathway, the wine-glass—
some tear-stained robe, some wincing nerve,
some ever-revolving mirror.
Now that you’re here, stay on
so that some colour, some season, some object
may come to rest
and once again everything may become what it was—
the sky, vision-bound, the pathway, the wine-glass.
Stay With Me
Stay with me—
my assassin, my sweetheart—stay on.
When the night moves on
after drinking the sky’s blood,
when this dark night moves on
holding musk-balm,
diamond lancet.
Wailing, laughing, singing, it moves on—
jingling the purple anklets of pain.
When hearts sunk in bosoms
wait hopefully for hands
cloaked in sleeves,
and the wine gurgles like children’s whining
when their desire once aroused,
no consoling will appease
when every word spoken fails to get across,
and no word gets moving forward,
when the night spins on,
when the mournful, dreary, dark night creeps on—
stay with me,
my assassin, my sweetheart, stay on.
Quatrains
Who takes notice of the moist eye, there?
So go there, carrying in the eye’s cup the heart’s
red blood.
Now if you go there with some entreaty, some craving,
carry not a beggar’s but your skull’s bowl.
The night’s wall, and there in front the beloved’s face
reflected;
blood has again started oozing from the heart’s mirror;
again has caution blurred the gaze;
the body aches again from the muzzling of desire.
Look at the City from Here!
If you look at the city from here, you see
circles within circles;
every rampart like that of a prison
and every pathway a prisoner’s circular walk—
The Best of Faiz Page 4