Naqsh faryadi hai kis ki shokhi-e-tehreer ka

Whose playful script does this whole painted world complain of? Each figure wears the paper robes a petitioner is made of.

Don't ask about the lonely toil my stubborn life has known; To bring the dawn from dusk is a task a lover dreams of.

You must behold this passion that escapes my own control; The killing essence of the sword is what exists outside of.

Let consciousness set out its net of hearing far and wide; The meaning of my world of words is a phantom bird I speak of.

For I am Ghalib, and in chains, my feet are set ablaze; Each link that binds me is a singed hair from the fire I tell of.

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Further Couplets

My feet are fire; do not ask how prison's horror melts away; Each link upon this chain is but a singed hair I speak of.

Illusion's playful shimmer is the hunt for the peacock's pride; The garden's flight is captured in the green net spread outside of.

The joy of coyness is a spell that shows a taste for being slain; The hunted, by the beloved's sword, is in a fiery wreath of.

The brick, a helpless hand; the mold, a farewell's sad design; By what great flood was the full measure of this building a sign of?

The dread of nothingness, Asad, is just a loud and frantic show; It lacks the taste which is the essence of the meaning mirrors know of.