Zamana dekhe ga jab mere dil se mahshar uthe ga guftugu ka

The world will watch when from my heart arises the reckoning of speech; My silence is no silence, but a tomb for the word of longing's reach.

The river's wave began to say, "My glory comes from journeying," The pearl replied, "To stay inside is the source of my honor's sheen."

A soul whose nature is complete, no training can make it more true; The stream-side cypress's reflection could not turn green, though in the view.

I saw no heart where there was not a dream of some desire held true; My God, what is this world of Yours? A gallery of aspiration's view.

At death it was revealed our life was just a spell of grasping need; What we had thought a body of clay was dust of the lane of our desire's creed.

If nothing in this world is veiled, why am I searching head to toe? The eye desires a sight to see; the heart is maddened by the quest to know.

The bud asked of the garden thief, "Why is mankind so cruel a thing?" Your smiling eyes seem to delight in the shattering of my flask of spring.

From every speck of Being's field, the light of love is born anew; If you could grasp the rose's truth, it's a covenant of scent and hue.

My themes are old, my words are naught but error through and through; If anyone sees art in me, it is the flaw in my critic's view.

Politeness bids me give You thanks, though Your grace is worse than tyranny's art; You gave one fragile thing—and it's a captive to deception's lure, this heart.

Such Perfect Oneness is revealed, if with a needle you but prod, From the rose's vein, I know for sure, would fall a drop of human blood.

The age of imitation's past; let false appearance take its leave; When Truth itself is manifest, who has the strength to even speak or breathe?

Though I, Iqbal, am far from home, my dearest ones, do not be blue; This exile is, just like the pearl's, the peak of my honor's truth anew.