On the sky stars write with silvery letters;

Your name emerges on the bosom of darkness;

It was these stars you gathered up 

Long time ago and

Wrote my name on the forehead of dark night. 

These angels of light had started dancing; they had smiled

On signal from your henna-coloured fingertip

Our bodies, dampened by the dew of wet grass, 

Had brought down the Milky Way from the heaven’s summit;

Our glance had trembled and our lips, acquainted with one another, had throbbed.

 .

In the crowded gathering of intimate friend

I am lonely on this earth; so are you.

 .

There are thousands of destinations, of roads;

Thousands of rivers and hills; 

Thousands of distances that cannot be measured.

 .

But the blue atmosphere, on heaven’s heights,

Holds our names, two friends, two beloveds, two lovers

Endearingly holding each other’s arms.

: 

These lighted circles in the shadow of diamond niches 

Reach out and sometimes join the Pleiades, sometimes Venus; 

Sometimes they chat with the moon, Mars, and Mercury;

Sometimes they float in the deep lakes of the Milky Way; 

Sometimes they bathe in evening-hued waterfalls,

 .

They wander, carried by the rotations of morning and evening, but 

They tear asunder the snare of the course of night and day;

These immortal stars are the fate of the present age;

They are the forehead ornament of the earth, of the dancer of heaven.

They sometimes shine on Delhi and Shiraz,

Sometimes smile on London and New York,

Sometimes place the crown of light on Moscow’s head,

Sometimes cross enemy borders;

Sometimes they bend over brooks and gardens and kiss them,

Sometimes string pearls in the hair of beautiful women;

Sometimes they rankle in the eyes of their critics,

Sometimes peep into the eyes of a bride;

Sometimes in refugeless, despondent nights, holding a torch in their hand, 

They show the way to a traveller gone astray,

Sometimes sink inside stagnant waters;

Sometimes they rain flower-like on windows,

Sometimes laugh from their heights at earth-dwellers;

Sometimes they play with the beautiful ones,

Sometimes signal children with their eyes to come to them.

Sometimes they pass over advancing troops, 

Walk in the funerals of the martyrs of fidelity; 

Sometimes they tarry in the tulip-fields of Kashmir, 

Sometimes in the waves of the Jumna, sometimes in the current of the Ganges;

Sometimes they change into fire, into fire.

The fire of war cannot consume these moons;

Gunpowder cannot extinguish resplendent suns.

 .

Our names are letters of happiness and blessings, of light and purity;

Our names: peace and friendship, love and nobility; 

Our names in this war-ridden and bloodthirsty world 

Are the sign of humanity, a guarantee of virtue;

Our names: strength, elegance, truth; 

Our names: an immortal, spiritual delight.

 .

Our names emerge on the bosom of darkness;

They shine upon the bright forehead of night.

 .

30 September 1965

.

.

From:  Pairāhan-i sharar (Garment of Fire), 1965. pp. 68 – 72

Hamāre nām is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970