A beggar’s bowl in the hand of night.

Bright stars, shining moon glad with light 

Received as alms, a borrowed glow,

This is their bridal dress, this their shroud.

And in this darkness the groans of dying bodies, 

That place of ambush for the dogs of Azazel, 

Those wounds of culture, 

Trenches, 

Barbed wire,

People’s bodies entangled there, 

Vultures feeding, 

Those split heads, 

Corpses bereft of hands and legs. 

From one end of the skeleton to the other 

A cold wind,

Mourning, lamenting, crying; 

Weeping sounds in night’s dead silence, 

Sometimes children’s, sometimes mothers’, 

The sound of moon and stars’ mournings; 

Crowds of disquiet stars on night’s forehead 

Last only till the rising of the sun.

.

Night offers nothing but darkness. 

Night offers nothing but darkness.

.

From: Bisāt̤-i raqṣ (Dance Carpet). Ḥaidarābād, Inḍiyā: Istiqbāliyah kameṭī jashn-i Mak̲h̲dūm, 1966. pp. 95 – 97

Andherā  is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970