Ghazals I

Ghazals I

Ghazal: Ever since that fickle coquette came into my sight

Ever since that fickle coquette came into my sight,
disgrace has led me from lane to lane and door to door.

A lover has no business finding fault with anyone;
God has given me sight to see beauty.

I bear the idols' cruelty because of my weakness;
when have I the strength to take my heart away?

As in old age one thinks of youth,
so on the day of parting I remembered the night of union.

In every grave the dead lie buried by number, one by one;
even after death solitude was hard for me.

When did I laugh like the wine cup in the gathering of the world?
Why does the azure sky keep me turning?

In love, Nasikh, madness is the very essence of wisdom;
it is you who are mad, you who call me mad.

Ghazal: At this Holi the colour was of no use

At this Holi the colour was of no use; [TN: the spring festival at which people throw coloured powder and water on one another.]
separation from my love has brought quite another colour.

Spring has come; let wine make the face red;
the colour is yellow from autumn, O hangover.

Purple lips, green down, black eyes;
the face's colour red and white, my love.

In the whole garden of the world
just these few colours pleased me.

My love has played Holi with my rival;
my blood-shedding eyes threw colour on me.

Whose Holi is a New Year feast today? [TN: Nauroz, the Persian New Year at the spring equinox.]
Cupbearer, colour my turban with red wine.

In separation from the beloved
how the colour shuns my face! It will not stay.

What is the chameleon beside the sky,
which changes colour a hundred times every moment?

O Qais, Laila is coming into the desert;
quickly now, colour the thorns with the blood of your feet.

There is sunshine, but my day of parting
has the colour of the shadow of a wall.

Why has Nasikh turned yellow? What can I say?
The colour of the times is strange, my love.

Ghazal: Seeing her own brows in the mirror, she fell wounded

Seeing her own brows in the mirror, she fell wounded;
drawing the sword, she became her own killer.

O killer, when did anyone escape with his life by fleeing you?
If my senses flew away, they became a wounded bird.

Where are the laments now? For that Laila has made my heart her home;
what was once the camel-bell has now become the litter.

When did those in power gain a good name?
Only one in the world became famous, Nausherwan the Just. [TN: Anushirvan, the Sasanian king proverbial for justice.]

Why only every pine has become a heart from head to foot: [TN: the pine-cone is likened to a heart.]
seeing that cypress-tall one, the cypress too was drawn to her.

You looked at the edge of the sword with such grace
that even the bird of the henna's colour became a wounded bird.

If you had thought of closing it,
why did the crack in your door not become the tear in my heart?

This is the soul-wasting grief for the mole by her curving brow:
in the Kaaba the Black Stone wasted away and became a heart.

He who is overcome here is the victor in the hereafter:
the mount of the slain is the one who one day was the killer.

The washerman has washed my love's clothes in the river,
and today the skirt of the shore is fragrant for miles.

When that cypress-tall one thought of stealing hearts,
every limb of mine became a heart on the spot, like the pine.

The Creator of all made skulls upside down, [TN: like a beggar's bowl.]
yet even so man came begging before man.

My lamp went out with the scar of union with my love:
the moon's light vanishes near the sun.

Any fairy-faced one who comes and sits cannot rise;
now I have truly mastered the spell of the mat's pattern.

The pull of kinship lets parting not stay together:
the clay body that was made yesterday is today clay in clay.

Ah, with what killing grace she began her prayer!
When the *takbir* came from her mouth I was slain. [TN: *Allahu akbar*, said at the start of prayer and at the slaughter of an animal.]

Seeing my madness, the ascetics say
that God's wrath has come down because of idol-worship.

When I pictured my love, I saw myself:
my heart became a mirror before my eyes.

The shameless lover brings shame on the beloved:
Majnun's robe, torn, became the curtain of the litter.

If she stayed before me from evening till dawn,
she became perfect in beauty like the full moon of the fourteenth night.

Nasikh's soul is a sacrifice to that most holy soul
for whom the Holy Spirit came down again and again. [TN: the Prophet, to whom Gabriel brought revelation.]

Ghazal: You have parted me from you

You have parted me from you;
you have made me sorely sick.

With the lightning of your glance
you have made me the tree of Sinai. [TN: the bush on Mount Sinai that burned with God's light.]

In love the heart became its own master
and made me helpless.

Preacher, you praised them so
that you made me a lover of the houris.

No grief, censor, if you broke the jar;
the intoxication has already made me drunk.

As much as you came near me,
so far away you made me.

Take off the load of the grief of parting some time;
you have made me a porter.

Wine brought the intoxication of knowing God:
fire has made me light.

We deserved to be punished;
well, you have made me forgiven.

Ghazal: I keep giving my life for you

I keep giving my life for you;
I keep taking only your name.

To tear it, counsellor,
I keep sewing up my collar.

From the cup of the eye, we who worship wine
keep drinking the wine of the sight of you.

Life is the name for liveliness of heart;
how can the dead of heart live?

The Black Stone too is a heavy stone,
which people keep kissing.

Tomorrow no one will give even dust to those
who keep giving gold today.

Wherever beloveds are buried, Nasikh,
I keep kissing their graves.

Ghazal: Ever since I came to know the idols

Ever since I came to know the idols
I have become a stranger to God's world.

How can I say I know God?
I do not know what I am myself.

When I went to the garden in separation,
I burned out in the fire of the roses.

When I beat my head in parting,
I am at prayer to the Most Great.

My face is yellow, I am picking up straws;
O madness, am I amber? [TN: amber draws straws, hence its name *kahruba*, "straw-snatcher".]

How should I be a stranger to my friend?
I am a friend even to strangers.

They have no mouth, thank God, or else
every idol would say, "I am God."

Where is the hope of union now?
I am parted from that rose like its scent.

Why should my friend not be glad, in place of mourning?
I have died like quicksilver.

People are glad when I am trampled;
am I henna in the garden of the world?

I shall laugh in a moment of my own accord, like a rose,
though I am sulking like a bud.

The thorns burn from my fiery feet;
O Qais, I am that barefoot one.

The ill-omened shun me;
no doubt I am the shadow of the *huma*. [TN: the bird whose shadow confers kingship.]

I am ahead of the caravan of non-being;
on this road I am the lament of the bell.

This is Nasikh's prayer, O Lord:
when I die, let me be the dust of Karbala.

Ghazal: That black tress takes my life

That black tress takes my life;
my lamp goes out today at nightfall.

There will be no one so nameless in the world:
lost be the seal on which my name is cut!

First, let the messenger not remember the idol's lane;
and if he gets there, let him forget my message.

Though I am mad, I am drowned in a sea of tears;
my name has become like Greece. [TN: Greece (*Yunan*), the land of the philosophers; the point of the comparison is obscure.]

Finding no wine to drink, I drank my tears;
cupbearer, even with tears my cup was not filled.

Even in the Kaaba my madness kept up its long reach:
it tore my pilgrim's robe in a hundred places.

In childhood there was one nurse; now there are four men's shoulders: [TN: the four who carry the bier.]
how fine my end is compared with my beginning!

Let one or two of your arrows stay in my riddled body;
let my net never be empty of prey.

Let the work of others go on, and let me fail;
what business have I now at your court?

Nasikh, let the beloved's messenger come quickly and say,
"Take the letter, and have my reward given."

Ghazal: I keep the fever of love for the idols hidden in my heart

I keep the fever of love for the idols hidden in my heart;
like a stone, I keep my fire concealed.

There is such freshness in my old verse that after my death
people will often suppose that I am still alive.

What was it in the idols that pleased me? For otherwise
the infidels have neither waist nor mouth.

Like the moth, I have no gold or wealth;
I keep only my life to sacrifice for you.

In my love's gathering not a word came from my mouth,
though, like a candle, I have a tongue, for what it is worth.

Whoever looks at the fair turns yellow;
these are strange flowers, that have the effect of autumn.

In place of a worldly kingdom, Nasikh, his is the kingdom of verse;
though he has no flowing command, he has a flowing nature.

Ghazal: All night, when that moon-piece was before my eyes

All night, when that moon-piece was before my eyes,
the skirt of my gaze was the envy of the moonlight.

The flood of tears made whirlpools in place of whirlwinds
in whatever desert I wandered like a rain cloud.

You turned your eyes away, and here the end came at last:
the bird of my soul was tied by the thread of the gaze.

Last night the garden brimmed with grace from your reflection;
from every tuberose a fountain of light was playing.

In the world I had no leisure even to draw breath:
the music of rejoicing on my birthday was the drum for departure.

The heartless are cheered by a walk in the garden;
every rose I looked at was a rose torn in a hundred pieces.

Even in dreams my rival could not get near my love
in the days when my thought was her news-runner.

When in parting I looked toward the sky last night,
the Milky Way was a dragon, and every planet a scorpion.

O death, you came and freed me from the load of the body;
how long this bundle of dust had been on my back!

All fear of the torment of parting has left my heart:
giving up life in cash was the atonement for the sin of love.

They say that he was killed for the crime of the sword of coquetry,
the poor one whose name, Nasikh, was in the killer's lane. [TN: the source ends the line with "gaya" (went), apparently a misprint for "tha" (was).]

Ghazal: No one's rise is tolerated here

No one's rise is tolerated here;
the land we come from has no sky above it.

The world's colour does not keep one fashion two days running;
which garden is there that has no autumn?

It is a place for warning: hundreds of thousands, children and young, are gone,
yet here, even in old age, there is no thought of death.

If that enemy has become a friend, what wonder?
Here there is no trusting even the friendship of body and soul.

In her proud walk there is such a sway, enough!
As if, my idol, your waist had no bone.

Let it move sometimes in thanks to the Giver too;
the tongue is not only for the pleasures of the world.

One withers and another blooms:
in the garden of the world there is no season of spring or autumn.

Those over whose heads the *huma* itself kept the flies away [TN: the bird whose shadow confers kingship.]
have not a bone left in the grave today.

Do not be deceived at the sight of the vessels for ablution;
it is a mosque, Nasikh, not a wine-seller's shop.

Ghazal: Trade is brisk in your lane

Trade is brisk in your lane;
your buyers are gathered in your lane.

Seeing you, I cannot lift my foot;
I have become like a wall in your lane.

I lie on the ground with my feet stretched out
like the shadow of a wall in your lane.

Though you do not meet me, at the urging of my heart
I go a hundred times a day to your lane.

I alone cannot set foot there, while
my rivals strut about in your lane.

Like the watchmen, restless at night,
I cry out, my love, in your lane.

I long, when I die, to be buried here too;
I need a little room in your lane.

If these, killer, are the signals of your brows,
swords are drawn these days in your lane.

Nasikh, who is not admitted to tell the state of his heart,
throws his verses into your lane.

Ghazal: Are all my nights the Night of Power

Are all my nights the Night of Power, [TN: *Shab-e-Qadr*, the night in Ramazan spent awake in prayer.]
that all the nights of parting pass in the eyes alone?

Ah, how lovingly we slept in each other's arms, my life!
Those dear nights come to my mind every moment.

Between your two tresses your cheeks shine brighter than the sun:
your nights are like broad day.

Every hour looks to me like a mountain;
dreadful are the heavy nights of separation from the beloved.

In parting, from morning to evening, instead of dew
the nights keep blood flowing from my eyes.

Stunned, I lie in the dark without my love;
my nights are like the night of the grave.

In the dark night of separation I cry out,
"O Lord, the nights torment me sorely!"

Every day stands comb in hand for your tresses,
and the nights hold up the mirror to you.

In the season of roses, that fresh rose is not here; put out the lamp,
for, O spring breeze, the nights must be black.

The bat is certain there is a golden bird in the sky: [TN: the sun, which the bat never sees.]
so wholly have my days become nights.

Even in place of the days, these come to console me;
in parting the nights are great friends to me.

Nasikh's days pass somehow or other,
but in separation the nights bring great misery. [TN: the source reads "baten" (words) for "raten" (nights), apparently a misprint.]

Ghazal: Everyone goes about carrying chains for me

Everyone goes about carrying chains for me;
I go about carrying the tip of a knotted tress.

Who was the faithful prey, that to this day, fowler,
your arrows go about carrying its wings and feathers?

When you come, there is no dark night here; on every side
my night-long laments go about carrying torches.

No one's face resembles yours;
I go about the world carrying your picture.

Though outwardly I am in retreat, in imagination
this heartless one goes about carrying me from lane to lane.

As soon as they look, they turn the colour of the world's beauties yellow;
you go about with the elixir in your eyes.

Everyone dies; who would bear enmity?
Why do you go about carrying a sword in your hand?

If they do not mind the candle's pride,
why do people go about the gathering carrying snuffers?

So that no one may reproach us for our sins,
we go about carrying the decree of fate in our hands.

Have the palace of the body built just like this, Nasikh;
these whirlwinds go about carrying a fine plan of building.

Ghazal: Better than a hundred tales is the story of my heart

Better than a hundred tales is the story of my heart;
my life, hear it from my own lips.

Nightingale, here the liver breaks in pieces at every lament;
it is not easy to copy the manner of my heart.

The longing must be martyred some day or other;
why should the elegy of my heart stop?

When even in old age I meet some young beloved,
my heart's youth comes back on the spot.

I have shared out the pieces of my heart in the gathering of idols;
each of them has a keepsake of my heart.

That fairy-faced one would be won with a single word,
but she will not listen to the magic eloquence of my heart.

Cloud, what of it? It could burn the sky itself;
where in the lightning is the flame-scattering of my heart?

You imprisoned it in your tresses and did not kill it with your brows;
you did not grant a single wish of my heart.

The load of love's grief has so filled it, Nasikh,
that my heart is ten times heavier than a mountain.

Ghazal: The messenger got a plain answer there

The messenger got a plain answer there:
that was the answer my letter got.

Today the speck has found the sun,
for I have found a cup of wine.

She says that at dawn, seeing her face,
she found the sun in place of the mirror.

Since our gathering of pleasure does not last,
we found a bubble in place of the wine flask.

When my fortune woke up,
my questing foot fell asleep.

When my heart became a blister, cupbearer,
I thought I had found a wine flask.

The grave too is being dug, along with the seal;
you are pleased that you have been given a title.

How long I have been searching, Nasikh!
Today I found that ruined one.

Ghazal: My idol, there is your lane, and there am I

My idol, there is your lane, and there am I;
there is this prison of deceit, and there am I.

The splendour of my idol says only this:
there is the one being of God, and there am I.

Of whom are you ashamed in coming here?
There is only your grief, and there am I.

Making a lament at every step
in the world, there is the caravan bell, and there am I.

A voice comes from your wall:
there is a feather of the *huma*, and there am I.

O God, let me have no desire;
this is my prayer every moment, and there am I.

The doorkeeper has made me the stone of the threshold;
there is the door of the mansion, and there am I.

She left me on the road and went;
now there is her footprint, and there am I.

From the cruelty of the age, Nasikh, every day
there is a new Karbala, and there am I.

Ghazal: I keep remembering my love's stature

I keep remembering my love's stature;
as an offering I keep setting the cypress free.

I keep remembering her night-coloured tress;
in the dark night I keep crying out.

I keep remembering my love's glance;
seeing the lightning I keep crying out.

I keep remembering my love's lane;
going into the rose garden I keep crying out.

Since the house is desolate without my love, in imagination
I keep the house of my heart always peopled.

Out of jealousy I do not say her name, lest someone hear;
I keep remembering her in my heart alone.

The gusts of the breeze have passed through the lane of her locks,
the gusts that keep scattering the scent of roses.

As soon as they go to school the fairy-faced become bloodthirsty;
do they make executioners their teachers?

If I wished, I could burn the cage with my burning lament;
I only keep humouring the fowler.

The calamity of the down comes down from God's wrath, [TN: the down on the young beloved's cheek, which ends his beauty.]
because these idols keep oppressing me.

If you call them the Angel of Death, it is right:
the fairy-born keep killing without a sword.

You are the fowler for whom hundreds of thousands, offering themselves,
keep setting free the bird of the soul.

I fear the sky may take revenge for it somewhere,
that she keeps cheering me with false promises.

What is your *diwan*, Nasikh, before those
who keep finding fault with the Quran?

Ghazal: When, tossing and turning, I grow restless without you

When, tossing and turning, I grow restless without you,
I cry out at night, calling your name again and again.

When my rival says, "I too am dying for her," then, ah,
what does he die? I simply die of jealousy.

She turns up sometimes, but she does not talk;
when she speaks, she says, "I am going now."

You are such a piece of fire that before you
the sun would come and say, "I am shivering with cold."

My weakness has taken away the fear of my going out;
now I threaten my love with my dying.

If I set out on the road of desire, I would break my legs;
only now and then I hold out my hands to the cupbearer.

When the cupbearer looked at the cloud with drunken eyes,
the thunder said, "Now I shall rain rose-coloured wine."

When my feet run toward the skirt of the desert,
I make my hands too run toward my collar.

Ghazal: Now clear yourself with me, my love, just so, of your own accord

Now clear yourself with me, my love, just so, of your own accord,
as the dust of resentment came into your mind of its own accord.

When did I say you burned me with the fire of parting?
My heart's laments rain lightning of their own accord.

Before the rose of fate the thorn of planning is useless;
spring comes to the garden in its season of its own accord.

If there is not one juggler in both worlds,
how did these four opposites come together of their own accord? [TN: the four elements, earth, water, air and fire.]

If that sun will not come to my house, let it not come;
the dark night will turn to morning at last of its own accord.

I have no complaint of love for a slender waist;
I have become, my idol, wasted and thin of my own accord.

O you who deny the being of the One who arrayed the garden from eternity,
neither did the roses come into being by themselves, nor the thorns of their own accord.

When that straight-statured one went by in red clothes,
the garden cypresses blazed up like the plane tree of their own accord. [TN: the plane tree, *chinar*, whose leaves turn flame-red in autumn.]

O heart, you have fallen into calamity by touching the tress;
does a snake ever bite anyone of its own accord?

It is no fault of your sword of cruelty, O rose;
like a bud, my heart is wounded of its own accord.

Is it my rival's mouth that kisses you, O tyrant?
These cheeks must have turned blue of their own accord.

Why lament in vain like a camel-bell, O Majnun?
Be patient; she will come riding on her camel of her own accord.

Ghazal: Now I have nothing to do with the rose-coloured cupbearer

Now I have nothing to do with the rose-coloured cupbearer;
nothing to do with wine, nothing to do with the cup.

The thorny acacias of the desert have pleased my heart;
now I have nothing to do with any rose-bodied cypress.

I am alone, at my ease, in the wilderness of madness;
I have nothing to do with any heart-soothing beloved.

My house is ruined; I am in the desert like the whirlwinds;
I have nothing to do with roof and wall, door and terrace.

I am free like the startled bird of the soul;
now, fowler, I have nothing to do with your net.

A bright nature has no fear of black days;
I am the dawn of Resurrection; I have nothing to do with evening.

I have been in exile so long that I have forgotten home;
now I have nothing to do with letters and messages.

Nasikh's verse is in separation from a self-willed idol;
I am a failure; I have nothing to do with success.

Ghazal: Would that I had been freed from the captivity of parting

Would that I had been freed from the captivity of parting;
would that death itself had come in place of Jesus!

If there is any relish in love, it is this very parting;
what joy would there have been, had there been no separation from her?

If there is no candle, the moths too cease to be;
had you not been, my idol, when would this godhead have been?

Every moment you signal to my rival with your brows;
you might sometimes have struck me too with the sword.

I am sick of his counsel every moment;
would that she had made eyes at the counsellor too!

I am such a lover of grief that I would fill it all into my own heart,
if the grief of the world could fit in it.

At the beginning of the down, when did you clear yourself with me? [TN: a pun: *khat* is both "letter" and the down on the cheek.]
The joy would have been if there were clearness in the clearing.

My field was denied the cloud of mercy;
O sky, you might at least have dropped some lightning on it.

In the thorny desert my longing for henna was fulfilled too;
else when would the soles of my feet have been dyed?

Why wash the Preserved Tablet with a flood of tears? [TN: the heavenly tablet on which all destiny is written.]
Nasikh would only have erased his own fate.