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

Faryād / Lament

Nobody tells anyone what they’ve lost.

No one recalls what their heart went through;

Life’s bitter wine jars are closed in the heart;

Nobody uses their tongue to say what sorrow is;

In every wound is a wound; in every sorrow, a sorrow.

Thorns rest in someone’s eyes; flowers, in another’s eye;

Somewhere there is the place of roses, somewhere, of attar;

This land thirsts for every drop.

.

From: Bisāt̤-i raqṣ (Dance Carpet). Ḥaidarābād, Inḍiyā: Istiqbāliyah kameṭī jashn-i Mak̲h̲dūm, 1966. p. 225

             

Nobody tells anyone what they’ve lost.

No one recalls what their heart went through;

Life’s bitter wine jars are closed in the heart;

Nobody uses their tongue to say what sorrow is;

In every wound is a wound; in every sorrow, a sorrow.

Thorns rest in someone’s eyes; flowers, in another’s eye;

Somewhere there is the place of roses, somewhere, of attar;

This land thirsts for every drop.

.

From: Bisāt̤-i raqṣ (Dance Carpet). Ḥaidarābād, Inḍiyā: Istiqbāliyah kameṭī jashn-i Mak̲h̲dūm, 1966. p. 225