On the way I met cypresses,

Plain trees,

All of them captives in the garden;

I met the evening of Gulmarg

And the morning of Phalgam;

I kept meeting tulips, narcissi, and jasmine,

The bodies of humming flowers.

But the withered bud of the heart

Did not open even in such a valley;

The need for the heart’s happiness 

Is neither rose nor tulip, nor eglantine nor jasmine;

The bushes of sorrow,

Jungles of pain,

Rivers

Where float the bleeding heart wounds,

The mountains of sadness,

Raising their hoods

Snake-like,

Eat up every street.

There is only night, only deep silence;

No bank,

No shore,

Neither a firefly

Nor a star;

O beautifully feathered bird of my tomorrow’s valley,

Only this darkness is your street, gate;

In this space there is neither threshold nor door;

The flight over you becomes the provisions of my journey;

On the hillside I’ll see sleeping

The golden dawn of your dreams.

.

From: Bisāt̤-i raqṣ (Dance Carpet). Ḥaidarābād, Inḍiyā: Istiqbāliyah kameṭī jashn-i Mak̲h̲dūm, 1966. pp. 210 – 13