Hai sabza-zaar har dar-o-deewar-e-gham-kada

Each wall and door in this, my house of sorrow, bears a verdant stain; If this is what its springtime shows, then of its autumn's pain, ask not.

I must embrace this helplessness, a longing born of strain; Of this hard road, the cruel companion's crushing chain, ask not.

Don't seek the trace of sorrow from a heart that feels no pain; Just hold a mirror to my face—what words could dare explain?—ask not.

All India, a throne beneath a flower's shade, would deign; Of that lost age of beauty, and its glorious, sunlit reign, ask not.

I am the weight of negligence on Justice's scale, a gain For naught; of this deep slumber's cost, a reckoning in vain, ask not.

Each fresh-seared wound is but a heart that waits and waits in pain; The vastness of this tested breast, this trial-ground of pain, ask not.

My love confessed to one who knows his heart, in tones of grief and strain, "Of separation from my Asad, of that burning pain, ask not."

My flight is but the fevered pulse of sorrow I contain; The burning life in this nest's thorns, the fire in that chain, ask not.

The moth's own heart is spring itself, so practice flight again; The soul's wild thirst for burning light, its sweet, consuming pain, ask not.