sad,
On him bestow
The peace and solace I have never had.
O Eyes that weep and weep unsatisfied,
That shed such floods, yet
never find relief,
O stem your tide
Lest you should drown the world in seas of grief.
She need not have one anxious doubt of me,
She need not fear my
further wanderings--
How can I flee?
How can a bird escape, deprived of wings?
FIGHAN.
XIX.
How difficult is the thorny way of strife
That man hath stumbled in
since time began,
And in the tangled business of this life
How
difficult to play the part of man.
When She decrees there should exist no more
My humble cottage,
through its broken walls,
And cruelly drifting in the open door,
The
frozen rain of desolation falls.
O mad Desire, why dost thou flame and burn
And bear my Soul
further and further yet
To the Beloved; then, why dost thou turn
To
bitter disappointment and regret?
Such light there gleams from the Beloved's face
That every eye
becomes her worshipper,
And every mirror, looking on her grace,
Desires to be the frame enclosing her.
Unhappy lovers, slaves of cruel chance,
In this grim place of
slaughter strange indeed
Your joy to see unveiled her haughty glance
That flashes like the scimitar of Ede.
When I had hardly drawn my latest breath,
Pardon she asked for
killing me. Alas,
How soon repentance followed on my death,
How
quick her unavailing sorrow was!
GHALIB.
XX.
I grant you will not utterly forget,
I hold you not unheeding and
unjust,
But ere you hear my prayer
I shall be dead and turned to senseless
dust.
How little can one eager sigh attain
To touch thine icy heart to
tenderness!
Who can live long enough
To win the beauty of thy curling tress?
GHALIB.
XXI.
The high ambition of the drop of rain
Is to be merged in the
unfettered sea;
My sorrow when it passed all bounds of pain,
Changing, became itself the remedy.
Behold how great is my humility!
Under your cruel yoke I suffered
sore;
Now I no longer feel thy tyranny
I hunger for the pain that
then I bore.
Why did the fragrance of the flowers outflow
If not to breathe with
benediction sweet
Across her path? Why did the soft wind blow
If
not to kiss the ground before her feet?
GHALIB.
XXII.
I had a thousand desires, for each of them I would have died,
And what did I gain?
So many indeed are fulfilled, but how many
beside
Insatiate remain!
We have known of the tale of how Adam to exile was driven;
More shameful in truth
Is my fate to be cast from the garden more
favoured than Heaven
Where she walks in her youth.
That living and dying in love are but one I have proved,
This only know I
That I live by the sight of the beauty of her the
Beloved
For whom I would die.
GHALIB.
XXIII.
How long will she thus stand unveiled before me,
Shrinking and shy
in maidenly distress,
How long, my dazzled eyes, can ye contemplate
Her blinding loveliness!
No rest is for my heart by love tormented,
It cannot even win the
peace of death;
How long shall it endure with resignation
The pain it suffereth!
Like shifting shadows come the great and mighty,
And live their
splendid day, and hurry past;
And who can tell how long the
changing pageant
Of fleeting life shall last!
O look on me, unhappy Asif, driven
As dust before the wind across
the street;
How long has Love ordained that I should suffer
Beneath the passing feet.
GHALIB.
XXIV.
THE WIDOW.
I call on Death, for Life is my distress,
And I myself a load of
weariness
Weighing upon myself. Helpless am I;
Dared I to weep,
then never would run dry
The fountains of my grief: I cannot speak:
Even the occupation that I seek
Goads me and wearies me. A
jungle drear
This world and all its moving crowds appear,
And I the
loneliest of all things on Earth,
Yea, lonely in the household of my
birth.
Tired am I of my suffering through the years,
Even as mine
eyes are wearied of their tears.
Spring comes again and brings the
cooling breeze,
And Autumn with the rain among the trees,
Fair
Summer with its moonlit nights of gold,
And Winter with its sweet
and gentle cold;
These come and go, with morn and even-fall,
How
can I tell how I have passed them all?
Well, I have borne them all!
Hope gleamed awhile, but fled unsatisfied,
The flower sprang up, but
drooped and fruitless died:
The silver bow of Ede shone above all,
But never came the looked-for Festival:
I saw the splendour of the
season wane,
Never the benediction of the rain
Fell on my parched
heart: the thunder loud
Pealed from the bosom of the darkened cloud,
But never came the long-desired rain:
I sought the fruit upon the
tree in vain,
The thorn smote deep into my heart instead:
Across the
desert wastes of sands I sped
Seeing the silver watercourses gleam,
But it was all a vision and a dream,
And thirsting in the desert I was
left
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