I complain not only of the garden’s destruction,

But even find very few stars in the sky.

Be it an evening sunset or a morning dawn,

I find very few springs in all scenes;

The body says: You should touch the horizon;

The mind says: You will find very few supports to do that.

I have reached here from foreign paths, but

I have not yet learned to be at ease in this gathering.

Having become fragrance, I even kept on floating in the cage, too;

For had I become color, I would have been imprisoned;

Darkness of the farmer’s cell remained before;

I did not learn how to be the lamp in a king’s chamber.

O you who say my destination is beyond the horizon!

I have looked from one horizon to the other and saw no one;

If there were one center, then seeking would seem to have some promise,

But the earth goes on revolving in innumerable circles;

The echo of new horizons comes at every horizon:

“Your destination is somewhere, somewhere very far.”

What does the traveller now have to do with the new ambitions of travelling;

Now my banner will be waved upon this very place.

In this desert, to adorn the garden

My feelings will become my mirror;

I will raise such a storm that

The farmer will emerge from his coffin.

The ray of the sun will crack open the frozen fog,

Will alight in the heart of this mist;

Shadows will shrink lest darkness be hurt;

Darkness will desire but will not find refuge.

Spring will come to this age with such force

That gardens will bloom from the heat of the bosom of stones.

.

1948

From: Sho‘lah-i gul (Flame of the Rose), 1948. pp. 112-14

Bahār āʼegī is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970