Jab chala woh mujh ko bismil khoon mein ghaltaan chhod kar

When she departed, I was half-slain, in my own blood to drown; My one regret was for her hem, which I had left cast down.

I am that Majnun who, if freed from his dark prison-cell, Would spurn the fruit of paradise, and leave the stones that fell.

If Mani painted those fine lips, my blood he would embrace, And leave the martyrs' crimson ink without a second trace.

I am so famed for being lost, when in Fate’s book I came, The Scribe just left an empty space, and turned from my blank name.

Your cypress form is gone, and now the garden’s cypress shade Looks like a serpent in the stream, and leaves me so afraid.

From childhood, love’s sharp arrow struck my heart’s own balanced scale; I fled from school, and left behind the books that could not fail.

If Fate allowed the worthy man in his own land to stay, Why would the ruby leave its home in Badakhshan that way?

She, too, enjoys the lover’s art, the way our sorrows sound, And with each puff of smoke she sighs, and leaves it on the ground.

My heart may one day learn to love the houris in the sky, But from this world of fairies, I must now depart and die.

I do not even know her home, the one for whom I wait, While I have left my own house ruined, abandoned to its fate.

If in our union I should see the sacred moon appear, I’d leave the Quran’s holy script to hold her face more dear.

Though poets find their worth is great in Deccan’s court today, Who, Zauq, would leave the lanes of Delhi, and ever go that way?