It was the night of sorrow;

Let it pass quietly;

Don’t make a balm for sorrow;

Don’t call the heart;

Don’t wake the dawn light;

Let the sleeping wounds sleep;

Don’t move the nectar-filled finger from the forehead;

The heart finds peace for the wound; for blisters, peace;

Time is a remorseless messiah;

It wakes up, brings one to life with a single command;

The evening of meeting has come, rising from the grave;

That faint wisp of rouge on the cheeks,

That light fragrance of someone’s garment.

The magic of the night’s deep silence threw its lasso;

When desire stretched itself

Lying in a slit in a corner of the heart;

Longings were seen creeping in ambush;

Neither is there Joseph nor Potiphar’s wife;

This night

Is a litter,

The Milky Way of pain or the procession of crosses;

The night passes like an ungenerous saqi.

Let it pass!

O time,

O affectionate and kind murderer;

Put a lancet into the pulse of night;

It is the blood of the night which flowers.

Let it flow.

.

From: Bisāt̤-i raqṣ (Dance Carpet). Ḥaidarābād, Inḍiyā: Istiqbāliyah kameṭī jashn-i Mak̲h̲dūm, 1966. pp. 226 – 28