For a year he has been dying. Send for the doctor!
Come, my beloved!
From the Pus'hto of Muhammad Din Tilai (Afghans, nineteenth century).
She has put on her green robe, she has put on her double veil, my idol;
My idol has come to me.
She has put on her green robe, my love is a laughing flower;
Gently, gently she comes, she is a young rose, she has come out of the garden.
Gently she has shown her face, parting her veil, my idol;
My idol has come to me.
She has put on her green robe, my love is a young rose for me to break.
Her chin has the smooth colour of peaches and she guards it well;
She is the daughter of a Moghol house and well they guard her.
She put on her red jewels when she came with a noise of rings, my idol;
My idol has come to me.
She has put on her green robe, my love is the stem of a rose;
She breaks not, she is strong.
She has a throne, but comes into the woods for love.
I was well and she troubled me when she came to me in the evening, my idol;
My idol has come to me.
She has put on her green robe, her wrist is a sword.
The villages speak of her; the child is as fair as Badri.
She has red lips and six hundred and fifty beads upon her light blue scarf.
Give your garland to
Muhammad Khan
, my idol;
My idol has come to me.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
To-day I saw Laila's breasts, the hills of a fair city
From which my heart might leap to heaven.
Her breasts are a garden of white roses
Having two drifted hills of fallen rose-leaves.
Her breasts are a garden where doves are singing
And doves are moaning with arrows because of her.
All her body is a flower and her face is
Shalibagh
;
She has fruits of beautiful colours and the doves abide there.
Over the garden of her breasts she combs the gold rain of her hair....
You have killed
Tavakkul
, the faithful pupil of
Abdel Qadir Gilani
.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
I am burning, I am crumbled into powder,
I stand to the lips in a tossing sea of tears.
Like a stone falling in Hamun lake I vanish;
I return no more, I am counted among the dead.
I am consumed like yellow straw on red flames;
You have drawn a poisoned sword along my throat to-day.
People have come to see me from far towns,
Great and small, arriving with bare heads,
For I have become one of the great historical lovers.
In the desire of your red lips
My heart has become a red kiln, like a terrace of roses.
It is because she does not trouble about the bee on the rose
That my heart is taken.
"I have blackened my eyes to kill you,
Sayyid Kamal
.
I kill you with my eyelids; I am Natarsa, the Panjabie, the pitiless."
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
My heart is torn by the tyranny of women very quietly;
Day and night my tears are wearing away my cheeks very quietly.
Life is a red thing like the sun setting very quietly;
Setting quickly and heavily and very quietly.
If you are to buy heaven by a good deed, to-day the market is open;
To-morrow is a day when no man buys,
And the caravan is broken up very quietly.
The kings are laughing and the slaves are laughing; but for your sake
Sayyid Ahmad
is walking and mourning very quietly.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
The season of parting has come up with the wind;
My girl has hollowed my heart with the hot iron of separation.
Keep away, doctor, your roots and your knives are useless.
None ever cured the ills of the ill of separation.
There is no one near me noble enough to be told;
I tear my collar in the "Alas! Alas!" of separation.
She was a branch of santal; she closed her eyes and left me.
Autumn has come and she has gone, broken to pieces in the wind of separation.
I am
Pir Muhammad
and I am stumbling away to die;
She stamped on my eyes with the foot of separation.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
Come in haste this dusk, dear child. I will be on the water path
When your girl friends go laughing by the road.
"Come in haste this dusk; I have become your nightingale,
And the young girls leave me alone because of you.
I give you the poppy of my mouth and my fallen hair."
Come in haste this dusk, dear child.
"I have dishevelled and spread out my hair for you;
Take my wrist, for there is no shame
And my father has gone out.
Sit near me on this red bed quietly."
Come in haste this dusk, dear child.
"Sit near me on this red bed, I lift the poppy to your lips;
Your hand is strong upon my breast;
My beauty is a garden and you the bird in the flowering tree."
Come in haste this dusk, dear child.
"My beauty is a garden with crimson flowers."
But I cannot reach over the thicket of your hair.
This is
Nurshali
sighing for the garden;
Come in haste this dusk, dear child.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans).
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
The world is fainting
And falling into a swoon.
The world is turning and changing;
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
Look at the love of Farhad, who pierced a mountain
And pierced a brass hill for the love of Shirin.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
Qutab Khan of the Ranizais was in love
And death became the hostess of his lady.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
Adam loved Durkho, and they were separated.
You know the story;
There is no lasting love.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
Muhammad Din
is ill for the matter of a little honey;
This is a moment to be generous.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
When you lie with me and love me,
You give me a second life of young gold;
And when you lie with me and love me not,
I am as one who puts out hands in the dark
And touches cold wet death.
From the Pus'hto of Mirza Rahchan Kayil (Afghans, nineteenth century).
A twist of fresh flowers on your dark hair,
And your hair is a panther's shadow.
On your white cheeks the down of a thousand roses,
They speak about your beauty in Lahore.
You have your mother's lips;
Your ring is frosted with rubies,
And your hair is a panther's shadow.
Your ring is frosted with rubies;
I was unhappy and you looked over the wall,
I saw your face among the crimson lilies;
There is no armour that a lover can buy,
And your hair is a panther's shadow.
"The cool fingers of the mistress burn her lovers
And they go away.
I have fatigued the wise of many lands,
And my hair is a tangle of serpents.
What is the profit of these shawls without you?
And my hair is a panther's shadow."
"A squadron of my father's men are about me,
And I have woven a collar of yellow flowers.
My eyes are veiled because I drink cups of bhang,
Being a daughter of the daughter of queens.
You cannot touch me because of my palaces,
And my hair is a panther's shadow."
I will touch you, though your beauty be as fair as song;
For I am a disciple of
Abdel Qadir Gilani
,
And my songs are as beautiful as women and as strong as love;
And your hair is a panther's shadow.
Your ring is frosted with rubies....
Muhammad Din
awaits the parting of your scarves;
Tilai
is standing here, young and magnificent like a tree;
And your hair is a panther's shadow.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
I came to ask for alms and have lost my all,
I had a copper-shod quarter-staff but the dogs attacked me,
And not a strand of her hair came the way of my lips.
The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
The lamp burns and I must play the green moth.
I have stolen her scented rope of flowers,
But the women caught me and built a little gaol
About my heart with your old playthings.
The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
Mira
is a mountain goat that climbs to die
Upon the top peak in the rocks of grief;
It is the hour; make haste.
The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
Grief is hard upon me, Master, for she has left me;
The black dust has covered my pretty one.
My heart is black, for the tomb has taken my friend;
How pleasantly would go the days if my friend were here.
I can only dream of the stature of my friend;
The flowers are dying in my heart, my breast is a fading garden.
Her breast is a sweet garden now, and her garments are gold flowers;
I am an orchard at night, for my friend has gone a journey.
I am
Majid Shah
, a slave that ministers to the dead;
Abdel Qadir Gilani
, even the Master, shall not save me.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
The world passes, nothing lasts, and the creation of men
Is buried alive under the vault of Time.
Autumn comes pillaging gardens;
The bulbuls laugh to see the flowers falling.
Wars start up wherever your eye glances,
And the young men moan marching on to the batteries.
Mira
is the unkempt old man you see on the road;
He has taken his death-wound in battle.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
Come to me to-day wearing your green collar,
Make your two orange sleeves float in the air, and come to me.
Touch your hair with essence and colour your clothes yellow;
The deer of reason has fled from the hill of my heart;
Come to me.
The deer of reason has fled from the hill of my heart
Because I have seen your gold rings and your amber rings;
Your eyes have lighted a small fire below my heart,
Put on your gold rings and your amber rings, and come to me.
Put on your gold rings and your amber rings, and you will be more beautiful
Than the brown girls of poets and the milk-white wives of kings.
The coil of your hair is like a hangman's rope;
But press me to your green collar between your orange sleeves.
Press me to your green collar between your orange sleeves,
And give yourself once to
Ajam
. Slip away weeping,
Slip weeping away from the house of the wicked, and come to me.
Come to me to-day wearing your green collar,
Make your two orange sleeves float in the air and come to me.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans).
Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me;
Breathing idol of rose ivory, look at me;
Beauty with the flame shawl, let me say a little thing,
Lend your small ears to my quick sighing.