When I saw you for the first time, 

You seemed to be a dream of youth, 

An eternal melody of beauty, 

A restless sentiment of love.

O wandering butterfly of youth’s pleasure garden,

I never knew that you were a captive scent;

I saw spring when I looked at you

But I never realized what troubles plagued you.

This gold-and-silver burden on your delicate wings

Will never let you fly freely;

The sorrow you’ve nursed in the desire for comfort

Will never let your soul thrive.

To survive in the shade of Capital, 

You have sold the blood of your heart and love;

Taking the goods of the withered decorations of daytime, 

You’ve sold the blood of the joys of cheerful nights.

The flights of your imagination are wounded;

Your soul’s sorrows are reared in your song;

Discontent burns in your kohl-rimmed eyes 

Like clay lamps on ruined graves.

What’s the use, if under colored robes,

The soul withers, melts, burns?

Lips should display a smile

But the heart should be vexed, dulled by life’s sorrows?

The heart’s contentment is also a proof of life’s comfort;

Life is not only measured in gold and silver

But also feeling, longing, pain;

It’s not just the tale of the sequence of breaths.

Better than crawling all your whole life is

One moment that expands your soul,

One moment that enlivens your tune,

One moment that gives joy to your song.

.

From: Talk̲h̲iyān̲ (Bitternesses). Dihlī: Panjābī Pustak Bhanḍār, 1963. pp. 234 – 35

Ek taṣvīr-i rang is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970