Weep not in the mystery of the tomb,
over the Spaniards’ momentary triumph,
for if a bullet your cranium destroye
your idea, in turn, an empire destroyed.
Jis ghar ke daro baam pa dekhe gaye shole,
Kuchh roz se us ghar mein andhera bhi bahut tha.
khuda ka shukr ke iss ahde be libasi mai,
Ye kam nahi ke darakhton mai pattiyan niklee(n),
Wo bach sakee na kabhi bul hawas parindon se,
Hisare aab se bahar jo machhliyan niklee(n).
Ah! cannot sighs not tears, nor aught else move thee
To pity me, who more than life do love thee?
O cruel fates! see, now away she’s flying,
And fly, alas! alas! and leave me dying.
Farewell, most fair, farewell, yet more disdainful:
Was never grief like mine, nor death more painful.
Ah me! the Five (Bhuta-s) , the ten (Indriya-s) ,
And the Eleventh, their lord the mind,
scraped this pot* and went away.
Had all together pulled on the rope,
Why should the Eleventh have lost the cow?
(Why should the soul have gone astray?)
In halcyon days
waves upon a kindred shore
you and I believed
(Previously published in Poems Md, Apr 2008)
A barren field o'ergrown with thorn and weed
It stays for him who waits for help from God:
Only the soul that makes a plough of Need
Shall know what blossoms underneath its sod.
Age, thou the loss of health and friends shalt mourn!
But thou art passing to that night-still bourne,
Where labour sleeps. The linnet, chattering loud
To the May morn, shall sing; thou, in thy shroud,
Forgetful and forgotten, sink to rest;
And grass-green be the sod upon thy breast!
The purest form of human intelligence
is goodness.
To your very end you'll need
all your foolishness and resistance
against so-called reason.
Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.
