Kehte ho na denge hum dil agar pada paaya

You say you’d keep your heart, if found somewhere about; But where’s my heart to lose? My purpose I found out.

Through love, my soul first learned the flavor of this life; I found the cure for pain, and knew a pain no cure could end.

The heart’s own trust, I know, is friend to my own foe; My sighs were without trace, my pleas could never reach, I saw.

Such innocence, such craft; such trance, such sharp design— In Beauty’s practiced scorn, a test of nerve I found.

Today, as buds began to bloom, I looked upon my heart: I saw it drenched in blood, and found the part I’d lost.

I don’t know my heart’s state, but this much I can tell: Time and again I searched; time and again you found it well.

The preacher’s noisy counsel salted every wound; Let someone ask of him: what pleasure have you found?

Where can desire, O Lord, now take another stride? The desert of all things, one footprint I have found.

My mind is sick with shame, this trial I can’t withstand; Yet helplessness, I found, is known in every land.

To play with dusty hope is just a childish game; I found Despair, who smiled upon both worlds the same.

Why shouldn’t Ghalib’s frenzy now demand its due? The one slain by neglect, I found, his own blood-price eschewed.

Lost in my own lament, I’m coiled from head to toe; Each limb a link, I found, with one heart’s cry of woe.

Last night her image came, a feast for sleeping eyes; At dawn the rosy wave, a straw mat’s print I found.

The more my spirit bleeds, the more a garden grows; The wound from the slayer’s sword, I found, my heart unclosed.

The dweller’s constancy gives the whole house its fame; From me, your very lane its true design has found.

No, Asad, you’re not cruel, nor is your torment mad; The more I sought to know you, a test of love I found.