O adornment of the windows of my dreams,

Do I pass by in your dreams or not,

Asking your eyes this: Tell me

If there is a dawn fated for my nights, or not?

.

This companionship of a few days, which isn’t even companionship,

Is becoming a sickness for a lifetime. 

Generally, life is somewhat tired for all times; 

Even now every breath is becoming heavy.

..

In the bedroom of my desolate sleep

You come like the form of some dream,

Sometimes like yourself, sometimes as a stranger,

Sometimes as the figure of sincere love, sometimes as a tease.

.

I don’t have control over love, but even then

You may tell me if I should love you, or not;

Should I, or shouldn’t I, declare these wishes

You yourself have awakened with your smile?

.

You’re the blossom on someone else’s dress;

But still my nights are suffused with your fragrance;

No matter where you are—I bow to your flowery cheek— 

Your lashes continue to shade my eyes.

.

The warmth of your hands, the perfume of your breath

Are swimming in the vastness of feeling;

Arms of imagination reach out for you

In the burning cold-night solitude.

.

Your kindness is a reality, but 

This reality too may be, in reality, a fiction; 

This cautious message of your familiar glances 

May be one further excuse to make my heart bleed.

.

God only knows what my today’s tomorrow will be; 

Intimacy increases and also becomes ashamed; 

Lively glances entwining about the dress of the heart 

Also become strangers before my eyes.

.

Explain to me the tired dream wishes

Of my helpless youth.

Your dress holds flower gardens—wastelands too.

My fate, tell me with which will I finish.

.

From: Talk̲h̲iyān̲ (Bitternesses). Dihlī: Panjābī Pustak Bhanḍār, 1963. pp. 15 – 18