O musician, for heaven’s sake, leave me alone!

It is time for work; let me do my work!

What a tremendous effect you have in your melody! 

It is as if lightning falls on the harvest of my understanding!

Time and again the thought comes to my restless heart–

That I may not be swept away in the flood of your melody. 

It was with great difficulty that I left my wine glass to come here!

O, with what a heart have I shed the blood of my longing! 

You again are showing me the way to the night-chamber of pleasure; 

You again wish to destroy me by colour and smell.

I accept that you can bring the world to ecstasy,

That you can eliminate life’s sorrows,

That your music is so infectious

That it makes angels sway with your melody.

Yes, it is true that your songs create such a tumult

That landscapes sway, and stars dance.

With your melody is linked the delight of life;

With your melody is the ecstasy and tranquillity of existence;

With your divine voice is the spring of mysticism’s garden;

With your melody devotees keeping night-vigil are beyond themselves;

Imitating you, nightingales sing;

With your melody, a tumult arises in the assembly of Venus;

When do I reject the magic of your music?

When do I reject your King David-like melody?

But you must also check the status of the assembly of existence;

On every tongue there is now the invitation to battle.

Peace is about to take flight from earth;

In cloud-veils bursts forth the sound of the instrument of war;

O friend, throw away your harp now!

Any moment the chaos of revolution will rise.

.

The hovering clouds of war are approaching near,

Hiding fire in their sleeve, raining blood;

Soon blood will burst forth from mountains and plains;

Soon blood instead of colour will pour out from flowers.

See those workers advancing fearlessly,

Singing something in their exciting tune?

Every moment the robust hurricane of revolt swells,

Raiding every side, advancing in every direction,

In time with the lament of starving people,

Walking in front of the poor, along with the destitute.

This capitalist system will come to an end;

The passionate revenge of the workers will have its result;

The pillars of the pleasure domes will crumble in fear;

Tulip-tinted wine will turn blood-red in the glass; 

The forest wind will bring forth the smell of blood;

Wherever the eye wanders, there will be only blood; 

Blood in huts, palaces, bedrooms; 

On plains, valleys, the wilderness; 

Blood in peaceful fields, in restless rivers, 

Blood in temples, mosques, churches;

In every field, blood rivers;

Rocks will be drowned in a bloody deluge;

Spring will be soaked in blood’s colour;

On the sand of the planes thousands of tulip fields

Coloured with blood will become gardens;

The intoxicated narcissus will become an eye shedding blood;

The ‘red storm’ will sweep down from the mountains; 

Settlements everywhere will catch fire,

Captives will come out of their prisons breaking their chains;

Fakirs will forget their prayers in the shrine;

The expanse of the world will embrace Doomsday;

The Angel of Death will dart in every direction;

All roofs and doors will be red with splattered blood; 

All landscapes will be drowned in a fiery robe; 

Time will learn from the bloody lesson of war 

That dust will shine in the sky and twilight’s colours on faces;

And in this twilight colour will shine 

Effulgently, incandescently, the sun of our country’s freedom. 

      1933

.

From:  Āhang (Melody; 1938). Dihlī: Āzād Kitāb Ghar. 1956. pp. 44 – 48

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