FIGHAN.

XVIII.

If you should meet the Loved One as you stray, O give my letter secretly to her, Then haste away And do not tell my name, O Messenger.

O Morning Winds that from the garden blow, Should you meet one like me forlorn and sad, On him bestow The peace and solace I have never had.

O Eyes that weep and weep unsatisfied, That shed such floods, yet never find relief, O stem your tide Lest you should drown the world in seas of grief.

She need not have one anxious doubt of me, She need not fear my further wanderings-- How can I flee?

How can a bird escape, deprived of wings?

FIGHAN.

XIX.

How difficult is the th.o.r.n.y way of strife That man hath stumbled in since time began, And in the tangled business of this life How difficult to play the part of man.

When She decrees there should exist no more My humble cottage, through its broken walls, And cruelly drifting in the open door, The frozen rain of desolation falls.

O mad Desire, why dost thou flame and burn And bear my Soul further and further yet To the Beloved; then, why dost thou turn To bitter disappointment and regret?

Such light there gleams from the Beloved's face That every eye becomes her worshipper, And every mirror, looking on her grace, Desires to be the frame enclosing her.

Unhappy lovers, slaves of cruel chance, In this grim place of slaughter strange indeed Your joy to see unveiled her haughty glance That flashes like the scimitar of Ede.

When I had hardly drawn my latest breath, Pardon she asked for killing me. Alas, How soon repentance followed on my death, How quick her unavailing sorrow was!

GHALIB.

XX.

I grant you will not utterly forget, I hold you not unheeding and unjust, But ere you hear my prayer I shall be dead and turned to senseless dust.

How little can one eager sigh attain To touch thine icy heart to tenderness!

Who can live long enough To win the beauty of thy curling tress?

GHALIB.

XXI.

The high ambition of the drop of rain Is to be merged in the unfettered sea; My sorrow when it pa.s.sed all bounds of pain, Changing, became itself the remedy.

Behold how great is my humility!

Under your cruel yoke I suffered sore; Now I no longer feel thy tyranny I hunger for the pain that then I bore.

Why did the fragrance of the flowers outflow If not to breathe with benediction sweet Across her path? Why did the soft wind blow If not to kiss the ground before her feet?

GHALIB.

XXII.

I had a thousand desires, for each of them I would have died, And what did I gain?

So many indeed are fulfilled, but how many beside Insatiate remain!

We have known of the tale of how Adam to exile was driven; More shameful in truth Is my fate to be cast from the garden more favoured than Heaven Where she walks in her youth.

That living and dying in love are but one I have proved, This only know I That I live by the sight of the beauty of her the Beloved For whom I would die.

GHALIB.

XXIII.

How long will she thus stand unveiled before me, Shrinking and shy in maidenly distress, How long, my dazzled eyes, can ye contemplate Her blinding loveliness!

No rest is for my heart by love tormented, It cannot even win the peace of death; How long shall it endure with resignation The pain it suffereth!

Like shifting shadows come the great and mighty, And live their splendid day, and hurry past; And who can tell how long the changing pageant Of fleeting life shall last!

O look on me, unhappy Asif, driven As dust before the wind across the street; How long has Love ordained that I should suffer Beneath the pa.s.sing feet.

GHALIB.