The poet (Mir) says that he is still here, even though your hand was short; he did not depart from your presence.

This profound couplet by Mir Taqi Mir speaks of existential dread and the nature of risk. The 'subha-gardaan' refers to immense suffering or ordeal. Mir suggests that the true terror was not the hardship he survived, but the very moment he was faced with the choice—the point of no return, the 'thread of death.' It speaks to the anxiety of commitment, the fear that sometimes, the anticipation of a fall is worse than the fall itself.