Sometimes past impressions rise up faintly in my memory:

That test of heart and glance, that nearness and that distance.

.

Sometimes in the desert of desire, the caravan—

All those things [signs of union] come to rest.

.

How can the glance and heart find rest? Where is the scarcity of delight and sorrows?

Whenever she has met me, I have loved her anew.

.

This lonely pleasure that conceals pain is very taxing;

Far lighter, far more bearable because the whole world was my companion.

.

You yourself say: What difference there is tonight between the drunk and the censor?

The former has just come and sat down in the tavern; the latter just got up and left.

.

From: Dast-i ṣabā (Hand of the Wind). Dihlī: Senṭral Buk Ḍipo, 1952. p. 15

             

Sometimes past impressions rise up faintly in my memory:

That test of heart and glance, that nearness and that distance.

.

Sometimes in the desert of desire, the caravan—

All those things [signs of union] come to rest.

.

How can the glance and heart find rest? Where is the scarcity of delight and sorrows?

Whenever she has met me, I have loved her anew.

.

This lonely pleasure that conceals pain is very taxing;

Far lighter, far more bearable because the whole world was my companion.

.

You yourself say: What difference there is tonight between the drunk and the censor?

The former has just come and sat down in the tavern; the latter just got up and left.

.

From: Dast-i ṣabā (Hand of the Wind). Dihlī: Senṭral Buk Ḍipo, 1952. p. 15