Romance

How delicate is her body, how mischievous are her eyes, oh beloved, The life (or soul) of her body does not come into my sight.

Love demands patience, yet desire is restless;What hue shall I give my heart, till it bleeds its very essence?

Laila's tent is dark, Majnun's home a ruin stark,Such fervent desolation, from love's visible mark.

Eye met eye, and sat, without a single word,Something thus began, a tale without a start.

Innocent eyes, an innocent face, innocent ways, If that beauty steals the soul, it's not surprising.

Passion has undone the fasteners of beauty's veil,Now no hindrance remains, save for the gazing eye.

When Heer Ranjha met each other, When the innocent Heer searched for him, Ranjha played in her lap, She could neither stay nor manage her emotions.

The veil will not hide your beauty, my beloved, I am desperate for the sight of your face.

You reside within my heart, yet Why are you so far away from me? My magical, beloved heart Just rest, my life, just rest.

Asad, what is expression's boldness, save Majnun's wild despair?For Layla of my verse resides, a secret in her palanquin there.

My beloved's intoxication, the magic of her charm, is indeed so, But every moment of her boldness is also a unique grace.

Beholding me, from behind the screen, my garment wildly cast,My very nakedness was then, to my own body made fast.

The climax of my love is your climax; you are not yet complete, and I am not yet complete.

When that heart-kindling beauty, like the noonday sun's bright grace,Is itself a scorching sight, why hide its face in a veiled embrace?

Upon seeing the hennaed fingertips of candle-faced beauties,

From my heart, your gaze to my soul did descend,With a single gesture, it made both content.

There, even the very gaze served as a veil;With ecstasy, every glance upon your face dispersed.

My life, Asad, yearns for one fervent gaze; The moth advocates for your petitioner's plea.

Union's boldness adorns humility's plea with grace,So ask in prayer for naught but her twin-curled tresses' embrace.

If I am a mother-of-pearl, then my hands are yours, the beauty of the jewel; if I am the earth, then make me the magnificent jewel of the king.

Though indifference may shroud love's secret well,We are so lost, its truth cannot but tell.

Why did I not burn, seeing the beloved's face so bright?I burn, beholding now my own gaze's might.

The garden has so deeply cherished your presence,Each bud blooming is its embrace opening.

Don't show the unblossomed bud to me from afar, just like this;I ask for a kiss; tell me with your mouth, what is this bliss?

My soarings are a yearning for the spectacle of the Beloved's beauty; for me, a familiar gaze is like wings spread wide.

From the majesty of your jealous beauty's sight,The rose's charming hue in my gaze is but blood.

Ghalib, I yearn for the embrace of that beloved,Whose thought is the rose in the pocket of a flower's robe.

The wine acquires its radiant hue from your lips; The cup's rim is entirely a flower-picker's gaze.

How can I describe the softness of her lips? They are like the petal of a rose.

Let me speak without reserve, more fatal is the cruel's grace, A sharp, naked sword, the unveiled gaze of that proud face.