Stay near,

My executioner, my love; stay near me.

When night passes,

When night passes by after drinking sky-blood

Carrying the balm of musk and the diamond scalpel 

Mourning, laughing, singing,

Jingling lilac ankle-bells of pain,

When hearts drown in the breast

Eagerly looking toward her draped hands

And hope,

When the purl of wine—like the sobbing of a child— 

Flutters with discontent

And cannot be assuaged,

When no pretexts can be made

Nor conversations started,

When night—mournful

Desolate night—comes,

Stay near me,

My executioner, my love; stay near me.

          Moscow ∙  1963 

                          

.

From: Dast-i tah-yi sang (Hand Beneath the Stone). Dihlī: ʻAlīgaṛh: Ejūkeshanal Buk Hāʼūs, 1979. pp. 69 – 70

Pās raho is quoted in full in Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970