Hujoom-e-gham se yaan tak sar-nigooni mujh ko haasil hai

This weight of sorrow bows my head in so much pain, To see my gaze apart from my own hem is vain.

Don't think this lover has forgotten how to feel; The joy of mending is to feel the needle's pain.

Where that one flower shows her face, says Ghalib, hear The bursting of a bud becomes a joyous strain.

Her pride in her own beauty stops her from all grace; Her judging mirror stands between us like a chain.

A fragment of my heart, in floods of tears I've cried, Clings to my lash, like drowning men who grasp in vain.

The dust of sorrow has so thickened all my tears, Each heart-shard in my eye is mired in mud and rain.

In the last writhing of the lover she has slain, Her lightning-grace is mirrored in his final pain.