Ghazals I

Ghazals I

Ghazal: Do not step so far outside your own robe as you go

Do not step so far outside your own robe as you go;
the world is a road of coming and going: walk with care.

You of shallow cup, before you boast, look at the size of your cup;
do not boil over as you go, like the surging of grief.

Here there is time for just one cry, joined to the burning of the heart;
so do not leap so high as you go, like rue seed on the fire. [TN: *sipand* (wild rue) seeds are thrown on fire against the evil eye; they crackle and jump once and are gone.]

These are like ghouls: do not take them for guides;
keep clear of the shadow of those who live by fraud and deceit.

Do not lean so hard on the strength of others, do not run so far ahead;
if you have strength, then walk on some strength of your own. [TN: a play on *bal* (strength; also a twist or fold).]

He Himself made man a puppet worked by springs,
and He Himself says to the puppet: walk by the spring. [TN: *kal* means both a mechanism and tomorrow; "walk by the spring" also suggests "walk as tomorrow requires".]

Then He gave you eyes as well, so that you look before you step;
who is telling you not to walk? Walk, but walk with care.

The hidden chamber of non-being is a wondrous place of safety;
so walk on out of people's sight, slip away from before their eyes.

How will it work with us? We know you well:
cruel one, change your gait a hundred thousand times as you go.

The candle that is ardent in love walks on its head;
the moth says to its own heart: burn as you go.

Blow the nightingale's senses away like the scent of the rose:
in the garden, walk beside me once, with perfume rubbed on.

If you mean to reach the heart, O glance of my beloved,
send two or four arrows ahead of you, as heralds of death.

Whoever, Zafar, would test the power of his own talent,
tell him: then walk in the manner of this ghazal.

Ghazal: It was never once so hard for me to speak

It was never once so hard for me to speak
as it is now; your gathering was never once like this.

Who has today snatched away your patience and your peace?
Your restlessness, O heart, was never once like this.

God knows what magic those eyes of hers have worked,
for my nature was never once so drawn as this.

Whose reflected cheek has made you shine?
O full moon, your brightness was never once like this.

The pain we suffered this time on the road of love:
the stage of the journey was never once so hard for us.

Some new Majnun is stamping his feet in the prison;
the sound of chains never once came like this.

Why is my beloved's glance now so heedless, O heart?
It was never once so heedless of your state.

The killer eye was always my enemy, and yet
it was never once the killer it has become now.

What is the reason you turn against Zafar every time?
Your temper, you who look like a houri, was never once like this.

Ghazal: The longing that fills my heart: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it

The longing that fills my heart: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?
Who listens to misfortune? If I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?

If you were clear with me, I too would speak clearly to you;
but there is a grudge in your heart: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?

There is no Mountain-digger and no Majnun now, who were my fellow sufferers; [TN: the Mountain-digger is Farhad, who cut through a mountain for Shirin; Majnun went mad for love of Laila.]
the pain of my love: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?

I gave her my heart myself, and I myself regret it;
it is true, my remorse: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?

Whomever I tell, he is seized with frenzy the moment he hears;
then the tale of my own frenzy: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?

You alone have been my comforter, O grieving heart;
apart from you, the grief of separation: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?

If you were a friend, I would talk to you of friendship;
but you bear me enmity: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?

I have no strength to tell it, so how shall I tell my state? And
she has no time to listen: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?

In truth there is no one who looks so far as that;
Zafar, my own truth: if I speak it, to whom shall I speak it?

Ghazal: The cure for those whose souls are burnt is something else, you men of learning

The cure for those whose souls are burnt is something else, you men of learning;
the fire of love is a calamity: its burning is something else.

Why should not every hair prick like a sharp sting in my frenzy?
The goading of the thorn of grief in your madman is something else.

Musicians, come with your instruments into our gathering;
but your plotting goes beyond instruments and gear. [TN: a pun on *saz* (instrument) and *sazish* (intrigue).]

The one drunk since the Day of Alast does not even spit on the daughter of the vine; [TN: Alast: the primordial covenant (Quran 7:172), when God asked the unborn souls "Am I not (*alastu*) your Lord?" The "daughter of the vine" is wine.]
the one who swoons over that harlot is another kind of lewd fellow.

What power has the sun in the sky to match its glow against this?
The radiance of the sun of my own heart's scar is something else.

We would wipe from the heart all the desires that are in it,
if we only knew that her desire was something else.

Cloud, do not try to vie with the eye that pours out rivers;
your rain is one thing, and its rain is something else.

The turning sky is matchless indeed at stirring up trouble,
but the turning of your trouble-breeding eye is something else.

The idol-worship from which, Zafar, comes worship of the Truth:
what shall I tell you? That way of worship is something else.

Ghazal: Whenever you cast your shadow on the river

Whenever you cast your shadow on the river,
you make a fish's scale out to be the shining moon.

Why, healer, do you sew up my torn breast with a needle?
You yourself are like a needle in my breast, a thorn of grief.

Lovingly hanging your arm round my rival's neck,
you strike my neck with the sword of cruelty.

Drawing the long-tailed line of collyrium into your eyes,
you make lilies spring in the narcissus by your magic. [TN: the narcissus is the eye; the *sausan* (lily or iris) is likened to a tongue or blade, here the tapering line of kohl.]

Seeing me in the wilderness, Qais was alarmed at first;
then, when he knew me, he said: "Ah, it is you, my lord." [TN: Qais is Majnun, the lover of Laila.]

My heart trembles lest the thread of a rose's vein should prick you,
when you set out to sleep on a bed of flowers.

What relish lies in the killer's sword, that often love's quarry
comes of itself and rubs its own neck upon it!

What do you ask me how I am? What shall I say?
The heart alone knows what kind of kind friend you are.

Full of pride and full of arrogance, full of cruelty and full of tyranny,
full of fraud and full of deceit, full of guile and full of tricks: that is you.

Tyranny your trade, tyranny your way, tyranny your rule and tyranny your friend;
enemy of the heart, enemy of the soul, enemy of the body: that is you.

Lone raider and spearman, brawler, harsh of temper,
swordsman, dagger-thruster and archer: that is you.

Strangler, cutpurse, ravager and despoiler, [TN: the source reads *tarraz* (embroiderer), probably a slip for *tarrar* (cutpurse); translated in that sense.]
infidel looter, cossack and highwayman: that is you.

Mischief-seeking, unjust, bloodthirsty, most cruel and vengeful,
hot for war, hot for slaughter, hot for killing: that is you.

Ill-tempered and ill-humoured, ill-mannered and ill-behaved,
ill in your ways, ill of tongue, ill to your word and ill of thought: that is you.

Without regard, without faith, unkind and a stranger to me,
my killer, my envier, my enemy: that is you.

O Zafar, is it a longing to kiss the killer's foot
that makes you writhe so ardently, as one slaughtered?

Ghazal: When the self-willed idol is not at our side

When the self-willed idol is not at our side,
how should we not be busy weeping evening and morning?

O Lord, the one who took away my heart's rest,
may that heart's-ease never once have any rest.

What she took for lips reddened by betel, rubbed with *missi*: [TN: *missi*, a dark powder used to blacken the teeth and lips.]
people, look, let it not be that evening has blossomed there.

Today that wine-drinker has graced the garden with her presence;
how could there not be a cup set in the palm of the narcissus?

Kill me now in a place where there is no one,
so that you, my life, will not be disgraced among people.

Look carefully as you untie the knot of your coiling lock,
lest the bird of my heart be caught beneath its snare.

Without you, self-willed idol, this heart is in danger,
lest, alas, your lover's business be finished altogether.

Friends, today every one of you looks so faint:
she has not drawn the sharp sword of her eyebrow, has she?

My playful one has such swelling, infidel eyes
that even the almond-shaped narcissus cannot look them in the eye.

The morning never comes, and the night does not pass:
has she opened her black tresses over her face somewhere?

O Zafar, the sun in the sky trembles so:
is my beloved shining today upon the edge of a roof?

Ghazal: My liver is in pieces, my heart burnt and roasted

My liver is in pieces, my heart burnt and roasted:
this love has become some torment to my soul.

When you killed me, you did a fine deed,
for I was freed from torment and you earned merit.

Sometimes she called me "smitten", sometimes "infatuated";
in short, each day I was given some new title.

Why should I not drink my own blood every moment out of jealousy?
Today she has become my rival's companion in wine.

The lip of the cup took kisses from your lip;
I kept biting my own lip and did not succeed.

For your sake I wandered street after street with tearful eyes;
by setting my heart on you I was utterly ruined.

The flood of tears carries it along through your street:
what has become of my skull? It has turned into a bubble.

From your not writing an answer to my letter I learned
that from today, messenger, we have been given our answer. [TN: *jawab* means both a reply and a dismissal.]

I sent for your picture to comfort my heart,
but the moment I saw it, I grew more restless still.

Your cruelties are many, and the Day of Reckoning is one;
this is what I wonder: how was the reckoning done?

Zafar, change the *radif* and recite that other ghazal, [TN: *radif*, the refrain word or phrase that ends every couplet of a ghazal.]
of which every couplet you composed was choice.

Ghazal: Whether you do justice, cruel one, or whether you do wrong

Whether you do justice, cruel one, or whether you do wrong,
at least listen to the plea of those who come to plead.

Every moment we profess our goodwill toward you;
do not ruin us on the word of those with evil natures.

What sin, what crime, what fault of mine, what error was it,
that you have turned executioner to me like this?

Where shall we go from your prison, without wings or feathers?
Why do you torment us in the cage, fowler?

If there is a path from heart to heart, then just as we
remember you, may you also remember us.

Though your heart be steel, you would become like a mirror
and be clear, if you would once hear my story. [TN: old mirrors were of polished steel.]

He has made a whole world happy and glad, Zafar;
so what is the reason you are aggrieved and joyless?

Ghazal: Look at my heart, you merciless infidel, and do not break it

Look at my heart, you merciless infidel, and do not break it;
this is the house of God: do not break what He has built.

I will keep the uproar alive in the valley of frenzy forever;
O madness, take care, do not break the chain on my feet.

Look closely for a moment at the mirror of my heart:
a whole world of pictures is seen in it; do not break it.

Why do you cut off the candle's head for the sake of a golden crown?
Snuffer, do not break the thread of the moth's love.

At the moment of death that playful one was saying to her slaughtered victim:
"Whatever promise there was, O grieving lover, do not break it."

Show me for a while the spectacle of the slaughtered bird's dance; [TN: *raqs-e bismil*, the death-throes of a bird whose throat has been cut, a common image for the lover's agony.]
do not thrash your hands and feet and breathe your last beneath the sword.

Fearfully, Zafar, say to that playful archer:
"Draw the arrow out of my breast with care, do not break it."

Ghazal: Look what a thing man is, made a puppet of dust

Look what a thing man is, made a puppet of dust!
What is it that speaks within him? What is that speaker?

Set against that tress, what is the snare of calamity?
Before that glance, what is the arrow of fate?

All the idols, it is true, are plunderers of faith and religion,
but that one infidel idol, God's name be praised, what a thing she is!

The thing that caught my heart in the snare of love,
I do not know, adviser, what it is.

If one drop of love's poison-water fell to one's lot,
then, Khizr, what is the spring of the water of life? [TN: Khizr, the immortal guide who found the water of eternal life.]

Death alone is its health, death alone is its cure;
what does the sick of love know of what medicine is?

That beauty has taken my heart and sits there, and then she asks me:
"Tell me, what is this thing in my hand?"

See the many-coloured flowers that have sprung from the dust;
it is a worthless thing, and yet what things are in it!

What you are seeking, Zafar, is within you;
why then do you wander searching here and there? What is it you seek?

Ghazal: If your face comes beneath the coiling, twisting hyacinth

If your face comes beneath the coiling, twisting hyacinth,
the sun will have turned and entered the sign of Virgo. [TN: *sumbul* is hyacinth or spikenard, a figure for curling hair; the sign of Virgo is called *sumbula* (ear of corn), so the line puns on the two words.]

You will have done me a kindness, messenger, if you come back quickly;
seeing the answer to my letter, patience will come to me.

Do not be so restless; if her anger comes,
O ruined heart, you will fall into trouble.

So much weeping is not good: enough, now hold back the tears,
or else, eye full of water, look, a deluge will come.

If the account of your sins is brought before you,
cruel one, the plain of the Day of Reckoning will grow narrow.

Seeing your keen-edged sword in your cruel hand,
the mouth of every wound in my heart will water.

Do not show the turning of your drunken eye, O cupbearer;
look, the cup of wine will begin to spin at once.

It will be good indeed, O troubled heart: if you leave my breast,
rest will come to me.

O Zafar, when the veil of shame and modesty is lifted,
that beloved will come before me unveiled.

Ghazal: When the tress came loose upon your face, you who look like the sun

When the tress came loose upon your face, you who look like the sun,
the truth of our own dark days was revealed to us.

What a marvel: the lancet was plunged into Laila's vein,
and Majnun's vein was opened by the surge of love. [TN: a well-known story: when Majnun was bled, the blood flowed from Laila's arm, or the reverse, so close were the two.]

The bargain of my heart is fixed on a single glance of yours;
why do you ask the rate? The price is known now.

How proud the mirror was of its clear face!
The moment it saw your face its eye was opened.

The prisoners of the cage longed to fly;
the window of the cage has opened: rather, their fortune has opened.

At last the dust of down has appeared upon your cheek: [TN: *khatt*, the first down on a young beloved's cheek, which spells the end of their beauty.]
it is plain now, mirror-face, the dust on your heart is plain.

You came without ceremony, with the fastenings of your robe undone;
now the knot in our heart has truly come undone.

A hundred times the ascetic girded his loins tight in trust in God,
but at last the cause of his slackness of will came out.

She was about to open up, and stopped. Tell the truth, Zafar,
with what eye did you look at her, that your longing was laid bare?

Ghazal: In every hue of that rose my glory is present

In every hue of that rose my glory is present;
heedless one, just look: it is present every moment.

Having taken every thread of my robe's hem as a holy relic,
every thorn of the wilderness is present, its head bound up. [TN: the thorns that tore the frenzied lover's clothes keep the threads as relics, "bound" at their tips.]

This nakedness of body is better than a royal robe of honour;
this is the provision we have, in your love.

How can anyone lay a hand on the hem of your robe?
As things are, hand and collar are already at grips. [TN: *dast-o-gareban*, literally hand and collar, means locked in a struggle; the lover is busy tearing his own collar.]

All night it kept taking upon itself the ills of your face;
ask, if you like: this dishevelled tress is present.

If you look at yourself with the eye of truth,
the heart of man is there in the mirror of the Truth.

Zafar says: these words are set before all
who are present here and possess true knowledge.

Ghazal: Let anyone hear the boasting of the tress from every tongue of the comb

Let anyone hear the boasting of the tress from every tongue of the comb;
this hair-splitting tress tears open the breast of the night. [TN: the teeth of the comb are its "tongues"; *mu-shigaf*, hair-splitting, is literal here.]

Just as there is a black covering on the Kaaba,
so the tress is a sheath upon the face of that idol.

The beloved's tress is so out of temper with my heart:
what did the wretched heart do so contrary to the tress?

I care nothing for unbelief or faith, nor have business with temple or Kaaba;
my heart circles round the cheek and circles round the tress.

Is it the musk-pod of the Chinese gazelle, or the musk-pod of Tartary?
How shall I say it? The knot of the tress is the navel of the tress. [TN: *nafa* is the musk-pod, which is formed at the deer's navel (*naf*).]

Today day and night are at each other's throats:
you moon-faced one, it is no gold-thread braid, it is the tress.

Some call the tress the letter *jim*, some the letter *lam*;
I, Zafar, say that the tress is a flattened *kaf*. [TN: *jim* (ج), *lam* (ل) and *kaf* (ک) are Urdu letters, compared here to the curling lock.]

Ghazal: The parting of her hair is a naked sword, a wonder; and the scent of her hair, always the same

The parting of her hair is a naked sword, a wonder; and the scent of her hair, always the same;
the plaiting of her knot is the wrath of God; and the scent of her hair, always the same.

Her eyes are bowls, and how cruel; her neck is long like a flask, a wonder;
and the red wine of betel in it still keeps that same gleam.

There is warmth in every word of hers, and playfulness in every coy gesture;
her stature is Doomsday, her walk a fairy's, and the same flutter in her step.

If her colour is a blaze of fire and her nose a rebellious flame,
then the shine of the fairy's cheek flashes like lightning, always the same.

Her young breasts are two buds, her soft belly a harvest of roses;
her slender waist, a rose branch, keeps that same suppleness.

Her navel is a whirlpool of calamity, her hips round, her thighs smooth;
her crystal shin is a shining candle, the hollow of her foot the same.

Her bodice is a bubble on running water, with a sunbeam clinging to it; [TN: *mahram*, the close-fitting bodice.]
her net shift is a calamity, and the rainbow of its lace the same.

When she sings she brings disaster, and draws out a life on every beat;
her dance raises a hundred troubles, and the jingle of her bells the same.

She who has made such advances to us at every word, Zafar, for so long,
and the love we bear her, to this day, is always the same.

Ghazal: Those who seek honour in the love of idols

Those who seek honour in the love of idols,
Zafar, are longing for water from fire.

If she ever gave the signal of her eyebrow,
the angels would bow their heads from heaven to prostrate.

When we bow our heads in the prayer of love,
we make our ablutions a hundred times with the water of tears.

Had the Kaaba not been likened to the beloved's face,
lovers would not have turned their faces that way their whole lives. [TN: Muslims face the Kaaba in prayer.]

The reverend adviser would have heard such things that no further word would come,
if he had said anything more about giving up love.

It is no wonder if, little by little, we became lost,
when we went searching for the heart in the beloved's lane.

Ghazal: Love is hard, O heart: who says it is easy

Love is hard, O heart: who says it is easy?
It was only your own ignorance that thought it easy.

If the knot of my heart comes undone by you, then I will know you;
O morning breeze, to undo the knot of a bud is easy.

Friends, tell me, what does it cost to give the heart?
But to get it back is hard; to give it is easy.

Though the cure for my heart's pain is very hard,
yet if you wish it, you whom the Messiah envies, it is easy. [TN: the Messiah (Jesus) is famed in this poetry for raising the dead with his breath.]

We used to hear it said that dying is very hard,
but in separation from you we have seen that it is easy.

The candle burnt and burnt the moth in the gathering;
to burn another without burning oneself: is that easy?

The road of love runs wholly along the edge of the sword;
lustful pretender, is it easy to set foot on this road?

O Zafar, if you can do anything, think about the hereafter;
do not worry over this world: the world's business is easy.

Ghazal: Qarun, I hear, went off carrying his treasure on his head

Qarun, I hear, went off carrying his treasure on his head; [TN: Qarun (Korah), the proverbially rich man swallowed by the earth with his treasure.]
what did the miser take from the world except grief?

I had vowed, for a kiss of sweet lips, that my heart
would take me to the shrine of Shakar Ganj. [TN: Baba Farid Shakar Ganj ("treasure of sugar"), the Sufi saint of Pakpattan; vows were made at his shrine.]

Cupbearer, if you are going to steady me, steady me quickly,
or the intoxication of henbane will have carried me off, swept from my feet.

Running our hand over her breast, we went off like this,
as if a thief had come and was making off with an orange.

The fun of *chausar* is this: the moment the throw falls, [TN: *chausar*, a board game played with long dice; *bar-e chahar* and *bar-e panj* are throws of four and five.]
we called "four", and you carried it off on "five".

The moment Zafar recited his ghazal and laid it down,
every connoisseur of verse took it away, pressed to his eyes.

Ghazal: My heart finds no peace in this ruined land

My heart finds no peace in this ruined land; [TN: one of the most famous ghazals ascribed to Zafar; its authorship has been questioned, and it is given here as the source has it.]
who has ever prospered in this unstable world?

Tell these longings to go and settle somewhere else;
where is there so much room in a heart so scarred?

Do not pull the thorns out of the garden, gardener;
they too were raised with the roses in the spring.

The nightingale has no complaint against gardener or fowler;
captivity was written in its fate in the season of spring.

How unlucky Zafar is: for his burial
not even two yards of earth were found in the beloved's lane.

Ghazal: Love there should be between us: may we have it, and may you have it too

Love there should be between us: may we have it, and may you have it too;
whether joy comes of it or grief, may we have it, and may you have it too.

Count it a blessing, friends, if in this tavern
one moment of a happy heart falls to our lot, and to yours too.

Reverend heart, do not remind me of the green down on her cheek;
let it not be that this poison falls to our lot, and to yours too.

The heart always longs that we drink wine together;
may the cup of wine be ours forever, and yours too. [TN: *jam jam*, "forever", also echoes Jam (Jamshid) and his cup.]

Let us make our love shine, and you make your beauty shine,
so that the world, seeing it, is astonished at us, and at you too.

Dear friends, when greed and desire always go along with us,
why should not care for more and less weigh on us, and on you too?

Majnun says to Zafar: let us tell the pain of our grieving hearts,
if now for a moment we have leisure from grief, and you too.

Ghazal: We died, ah well, humouring her airs and graces

We died, ah well, humouring her airs and graces;
at the hands of the heart, what a captivity we have fallen into!

Our heart's burning is plain to all in the gathering;
like the candle, we burn in our own brisk trade.

In remembering you, our thought is on the coming and going of each breath;
we are unaware of everything, keeping watch over that breath.

When the turning sky made us laugh, like a rose,
we are ever weeping and wailing, like the dew. [TN: the rose "laughs" when it opens; the dew is its tears.]

Our eyes and heart see clearly, day and night, O people;
though we seem to sleep, we are awake.

Is the bud tying its travelling pack on the shoulders of the breeze?
Here we see everyone as if, like us, getting ready to leave.

O Lord, how long shall we look for faith from one who has none?
These days we are busy consoling the heart.

Friends, what does that playful one say now, looking in the mirror?
"In grace of manner we are a hundred times better than the moon."

O Zafar, write a ghazal now, changing metre and rhymes;
with a pen that rains pearls we are scattering gems now.

Ghazal: Whether I am a sinner or full of fault, I am something

Whether I am a sinner or full of fault, I am something;
I am Your servant, O God: I am something.

I do not understand the part and the whole,
but in my heart I know a little something.

I keep up my love for You:
faithful or faithless, I am something.

Only since I have become a stranger to everyone
have I become, in some measure, acquainted with Him.

The intoxication of love has carried me off;
now I am enjoying the flight a little.

My sleep is the very essence of waking;
even in it I see something.

Though I am nothing at all, yet
do not ask, even so, how much I am.

May He think of me as His humble one;
the dust of the road, or the dust of His feet, I am something.

I am what I am through the kind eye of Fakhr-e Din; [TN: probably the Chishti saint Maulana Fakhruddin of Delhi (d. 1785), in whose line Zafar's spiritual guides stood; the identification is hedged.]
O Zafar, from something I have become something.

Ghazal: That trickster never kept his word in anything

That trickster never kept his word in anything;
what did I not do on this side? But on that side nothing was done.

He would have brought a plain answer, if he did not bring a letter;
what was written in my fate: from the messenger nothing was done.

He always raised up troubles over my head;
this happened, but besides this, from that troublemaker nothing was done.

Never mind, at least my weeping by night might have had some effect,
though in love, from my sigh at dawn nothing was done.

Burning and burning, it consumed me like a candle;
that is all: for me, from the burning of my heart nothing else was done.

Her warm welcome to my rival stayed the same;
from this cold sigh and this wet eye nothing was done.

What headaches have I not borne in love!
But as for gain, from this headache nothing was done for me.

Even on the night of union, for rest to my soul,
friends, for fear of the pain of parting, nothing was done.

"I will not give her my heart," I always used to say;
today she took it after all, and Zafar could do nothing.

Ghazal: His secret was not grasped by friendship, nor by cunning

His secret was not grasped by friendship, nor by cunning;
God knows, it was grasped by keeping watch over the heart.

How can those whose senses are not in place reach the destination?
Whoever found the road found it by being awake.

Why has the sky become so cruel toward us?
Someone should ask it: tyrant, what have you gained by cruelty?

Even if the wealth of this world did come into the hands of the greedy,
we have seen with what disgrace and humiliation it came.

Do not wound hearts, cruel one, if you mean to win this heart;
whenever anyone's heart was won, it was won by kindness.

Though humility is an easy recipe for the philosopher's stone,
whoever found it found it with difficulty.

The one sick from your eye never found health at all,
until the poison of your verdigris-green down was found. [TN: the down on the cheek (*khatt*) is green, like verdigris, a poison; only its "poison" cures the lover sickened by the eye.]

This frightened wild creature had come into your hands once,
but, you who are like a hunter, it was caught by the capture of the heart.

Zafar, the pearl of our desire in both worlds
was gained through the help of his honour Fakhr-e Din.

Ghazal: Neither grief lasts forever nor pleasure: sometimes it is this way, sometimes that

Neither grief lasts forever nor pleasure: sometimes it is this way, sometimes that;
here there is change every hour: sometimes it is this way, sometimes that.

At times I am tearing my collar, at times throwing dust in the air;
frenzy leads me about: sometimes it is this way, sometimes that.

One moment they are my companions, the next they will turn enemies;
company keeps to no one pattern: sometimes it is this way, sometimes that.

When I am weeping like the flask, then I am laughing like the cup; [TN: the flask "weeps" as wine pours out; the cup "laughs" as it fills.]
such is the state of things here: sometimes it is this way, sometimes that.

At one time tears are flowing, at another sighs and wailing;
in short, the state of the grief of separation: sometimes it is this way, sometimes that.

The spring of the rose lasts a few days, then at last comes autumn entire;
the garden is a place for taking warning: sometimes it is this way, sometimes that.

Zafar, how can one who keeps changing his intention
stand firm forever on one word? Sometimes it is this way, sometimes that.

Ghazal: I want neither the dervish's patched cloak nor the royal crown

I want neither the dervish's patched cloak nor the royal crown;
give me only this much sense: that I stay mad for You.

What is there in books? Let us write and write and then wash them all away;
Your word is carved on our heart as if on stone.

Count as a blessing each moment that passes in rapture in the garden;
keep filling the measure and giving it, cupbearer who breaks your pledges. [TN: a pun on *paiman* (pledge) and *paimana* (measuring cup).]

Nowhere did I see the splendour I saw in the house of the heart;
I beat my head long in the mosque, I searched long in the idol-house.

Let there be something by which I reach the goal I seek,
whether it be the way of piety or the road of the drinkers.

All this coming and going rests on the coming and going of a breath;
the coming and going lasts only so long: then no more going, no more coming.

Zafar, the ascetic who feels no pain may cry "*Hu*! *Haqq*!", but better [TN: *Hu* (He) and *Haqq* (the Truth) are cries of Sufi remembrance of God.]
is the drinker who raises a drunken "*Ha*! *Hu*!" from the pain of his heart.