This soft movement of fragrance, the air, this night;

Love keeps on remembering the broken relationships.

.

How can the business [of those eyes] be opened to our heart;

Those eyes, having such magic, have turned open matters into secrets.

.

Love dies in the lap of despair; 

Now then, if someone makes up for it, things have not gone too far.

.

There should be something more than these signs;

O glance of kindness, all of these glances are talk, talk, talk.

.

An age has been passed waiting for you;

There are some people who were not able to pass even one night.

.

How long will your eye remain like the silent instrument?

Yes, if this silence now is broken, then that would be something.

.

We people were the ear upon the sound of solitude;

The air was cool; your sorrow was there; the night was on to midnight.

.

Somehow or other, that coquettish glance arose stealthily;

But some terrible incidents arose in the world of the heart.

.

Lovers have completely changed God’s will from the beginning;

What they could have done, was done; beyond that, all is talk.

.

O, fool! Such sad, tragic incidents have happened in love

That the soul of sorrow has not been able to get clues to them.

.

The hand of love is in every effort, in every action.

O, Man! Understand some incentives for the construction of life.

.

Your glance has sent me to that place where

This lifeless world is as if it were breathing.

.

How can sleep come to him who may not know who is awake?

He who can make the day day, must also be able to make the night night.

.

The ebb and flow of the river too are the games of water;

What of Death and Life? Are they the only Miracle of Being?

.

Among contented people there should be a manner of revolution.

Life should not be so fully fetter to traditions.

.

~~~

.

We are people of heart having no need of even kind glances;

O glance of the lover! Come and listen; things have come to a head.

.

We people of sorrow changed the colour of the age?

Everyone tried, but it was only a matter of being able.

.

Someone should be so influenced by the movement of the universe

That (s)he should produce new earth and new skies.

.

Rise up from slavery! Be “masters of your fates and looks!”

What’s the use of fearing punishment! What is this worry about salvation?

.

I am a poet; my suspicions are alerting me of even those realities 

Which are in a deep sleep.

.

O Firaq, sorrow did not even give me the time of sorrow;

Just as the sorrow of life does not give the time of life.

.

From: Gul-i nag̲h̲mah (Flower Songs), Part 1. Allahābād: Idārah-yi Anīs-i Urdū, 1971. p. 88