Dikhla na khaal-e-naaf tu ae gul-badan mujhe

O rose-form, hide your navel's mole, a source of sweet, sharp pain, For now each tulip seems a musk-pod, drenched in fragrant rain.

This robe of flesh has now become a constant, weary strain; My body feels like one great thorn; I live within its pain.

My madness drives me through the garden, time and time again; The gentle garden breeze itself becomes a binding chain.

In this great court of verse, I lead the prayerful, rhyming train, For God has made me chief of this sublime and high domain.

O Jasmine-love, your teeth like pearls now cause me so much pain, The jasmine flowers in the garden weep in the cold rain.

Your brow's dark arch, my Kaaba's curve, will sacredly remain, So hunters see me as protected prey, and hunt in vain.

My bones are hollow reeds, dried out by constant, burning strain; O weakness, why through thorns do you now drag my frame in pain?

O lips, discard that powder dark, for sapphires are in vain; Give me your ruby kiss, a gem from Yemen's rich domain.

Am I the candle or the flame? I cannot ascertain; My very clothes become a lantern's fragile, glowing pane.

In spring or fall, my soul's a field where tulip-scars remain; The fresh wound and the old are one; I feel the same deep pain.

The chisel cried to Farhad's ghost, "Your love was not in vain! Unless I taste your blood, no lover's quest can sweetness gain."

The down that shades your cheek has cast a net I can't explain; It seems the fabled Anqa's eye, a trap I can't contain.

This heart could grind the earth and sky to dust and scattered grain, If just one flash of you would shield me from this world of pain.

Who would have known that I lay dying in your lonely lane? The moonlight came and wrapped me in its silver shroud again.

O moon-eclipsing beauty, your brow's faint and troubled strain Shows me the whole wide world below, a vast and mapped terrain.

With what a glance of feigned regard, what elegant disdain, The promise-breaking Sāqi pours the wine that brings me pain again.

If this heart's pull is true, then from despair's deep well of pain, Your hair's dark, twisting curls will draw me to the light again.

A hundred arts are shown in just one glance, both proud and plain; Your simple grace, combined with style, now holds me in its chain.

Like a lone star that glitters in a deep well after rain, My heart appears, lost in your chin's sweet dimple, bright with pain.

Come, show your eyes and put that rival's beauty to the wane; The musk-deer of Khotan now challenges my love in vain.

Come, my own garden, for your love's a wind that ends all pain; The desert of my heart now blooms, a garden in the rain.

O Lord, is this a heart or but a mirror, clear and plain? It shows me distant journeys while at home I still remain.

I, Zauq, bring light to this assembly, a celestial train; The masters of the verse will honor me in this domain.