This poem was translated by Professor Carlo Coppola as part of the MULOSIGE Translations project. You can explore our collection of Urdu Poetry here.

Professor Carlo Coppola, Oakland University

Ghazal: Bisāt̤-i raqṣ pah / Ghazal: On the dance carpet

For a hundred Easts and Wests, since evening

Your shining full-moon friendship upon the dance carpet.

Your kind beauty, like wine, wells up;

Every glance, a glass, fills to the brim.

The arms of your loving words clasp my neck;

Somewhere behind my thoughts, the message of the moment of farewell.

.

The night meeting has already begun to dissolve into memory;

Every beautiful face has become even more beautiful.

O Faiz, we met and departed

So that any impression formed on the heart will be a rose, not a scar.

.
    Hang Chao / Hangzhou, China    July 1956

.

From: Dast-i tah-yi sang (Hand Beneath the Stone). Dihlī: ʻAlīgaṛh: Ejūkeshanal Buk Hāʼūs, 1979. pp. 25 – 27

Bisāt̤-i raqṣ pah is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970

             

For a hundred Easts and Wests, since evening

Your shining full-moon friendship upon the dance carpet.

Your kind beauty, like wine, wells up;

Every glance, a glass, fills to the brim.

The arms of your loving words clasp my neck;

Somewhere behind my thoughts, the message of the moment of farewell.

.

The night meeting has already begun to dissolve into memory;

Every beautiful face has become even more beautiful.

O Faiz, we met and departed

So that any impression formed on the heart will be a rose, not a scar.

.
    Hang Chao / Hangzhou, China    July 1956

.

From: Dast-i tah-yi sang (Hand Beneath the Stone). Dihlī: ʻAlīgaṛh: Ejūkeshanal Buk Hāʼūs, 1979. pp. 25 – 27

Bisāt̤-i raqṣ pah is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970