Sad

Truly, my state, oh friend, is now like a funeral bier.Yesterday too I stood at a shrine, today too I stand here!

From weakness, O tears, naught in my body remains,The blood that reached no skirt, as mere color, it flew.

Each drop a blueprint for a new, festering sore,My blood within my body, from pain's relish, is never free more.

In weakness's crushing grip, what new infirmity can show?My body holds no space for my stature to even bend low.

What glory did Ghalib possess in his homeland, that in exile he might find acclaim? I am, without reserve, that handful of dry straw, not even found for the furnace's flame.

In my chest, the arrows of his broken heart are countless, All the holes have appeared within my core.

One coughs, one dies, Oppression reigns everywhere now.

From the wild frenzy of a passion's tumultuous roar, I read disgrace in tears spilled on the desert's floor.

It is not now, 'Mir', that the chest burns, Having consumed all the heart, oh stain.

Alas, that destiny fed to teeth's maw, by fate's decree,Those fingers, worthy of a pearl string's purity.

Someone or another suddenly died in life,Not a single day passed, alas, without an accident.

Even today, the storms shed tears,They have drowned me in my prime youth.

Some matters of the heart, I cannot bring outside; Some tears there are, that I cannot let them slide.

Oath upon oath, I vow not to cry! Yet tears keep welling, I cannot deny.

My poems, O Iqbal, why aren't they dear to me? / These streams of pain from my broken heart are too much.

No longer fit for love's humble plea, The heart I once prided, is no longer with me.

I depart, bearing the scar of existence's desire, An extinguished candle, no longer fit for the assembly's fire.

O heart, devise some other way to die, I say, For I no longer merit the killer's hand and arm.

I fear not the tyranny of love, 'Asad', but alas,The heart I was proud of, that heart is no more.

All manners of lament, I still recall, Asad,But the heart I once treasured, that heart is no more.

When tears do not appear in the eyes, Blood arrives when it is not expected.

In life, they would dismiss me from the gathering, Let me see now that I've died, who lifts me up?

Without you, this house's life, it pricks my eye,I always weep, when walls and doors I spy.

To weep always from your cruelty, this is my fate, How long will both my heart and mind remain loyal to your gate?

My weeping craves the ruin of my dwelling, From doors and walls, a wilderness seems to drip.

Oh, such is the fury of your temperament, so profound its dread,That the very pieces of my lament in my heart by sorrow were fed.

In helplessness's realm, one heart, a drop of blood, was all;And even that stays bowed, like a tear about to fall.

When will the thought of death bring comfort to my grief-filled heart?Even it, a meager prize, is tangled in desire's net, playing a futile part.

I wish I hadn't cried out, my friend, how could I know,That it too would make my inner sorrow grow?

The heart's sorrow has no remedy, The wind has made its presence known.