It was still dark when, coming to my bedside.

The moon said to me: “Get up! Dawn is come;

Get up! Tonight your share of the wine of sleep 

Is lowered from the brim to the bottom of the cup.”

After bidding farewell to the reflection of my beloved, I raised my eyes 

To the black sheet of night’s stagnant water;

The whirlpools of silver started to dance about here and there;

The stars—lotuses—falling from the hand of the moon,

Sank, floated, opened and withered;

Night and dawn lay long in each other’s arms.

.

The golden features of my comrades in the prison courtyard 

Glittering little by little from the surface of darkness;

The dew of sleep had washed clean the sorrow

Of separation from the beloved, of separation from one’s country.

Far off, a gong sounded; disgusted footsteps of

Guards, tortured by yellow starvation, started their rounds

And the angry, shouting laments 

Wander off arm in arm with them.

The breeze, drunk with pleasure of sleep, woke up;

Dead-tired voices filled with the poison of prison, woke up.

.

In the distance, a door opened; another closed;

In the distance, a chain became restless and cried and quivered;

In the distance, a dagger descended into the heart of some lock.

Some window incessantly began to strike its head

As if again, awakened from sleep, the enemies of life—

Enormous geniis moulded from stone and steel—

In whose clutches the lament of nights and days—

The delicate fairies of my useless nights and days— 

These captives are waiting for their prince

In whose quiver are the burning arrows of Hope.

.

(Unfinished)

 

.

From:  Dast-i ṣabā (Hand of the Wind). Dihlī: Senṭral Buk Ḍipo, 1952. pp. 107 – 110 

Zindān̲ kī ek subḥ is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970