Mahmud Gami

1) Seeking for a likeness of man

I said to the bubble:

How live you on water?

2) I asked of the butcher the meaning of love’s art.

He said “Tie thy heart with the fork of love.

This roasted meat tastes better while burning.”

How live you on water?

3) Out of His love the lover blew the bubble; and it lived!

Soon was it blown off with another breath

But who died? And what remained still

To account for, is the riddle.

How live you on water?

4) Tear open the veil of thy malice;

And thou shalt see the Monarch with his viceroy seated.

Go forward, fear not frowns and frets.

How live you on water?

5) The Form and the Reality and like the dream and its interpretation.

The two are as the rose and its perfume.

Really all the veils are removed from him who is one with Him.

How live you on water?

6) Try to turn the wheel of constant remembrance by the rope of meditation,

For, this water-wheel moves by its own ropes.

Don’t be given to luxury and repose!

How live you on water?

Maqbool Shah Kralawari

1) The garden was full of variegated flowers,

The nightingales were intoxicated.

2)The garden was filled with perfume,

As the flowers waved with the breeze.

3)Beds were filled with Suri flowers

As though they were watered by the musk-dealers of China.

4)The red rose, the yellow rose, the white rose

and whole beds of red flowers were there.

5)The fresh and fragrant Jessamine, narcissus and tulips

And lilacs were there in sheaves.

6)The pomegranate trees were full of red flowers,

The nightingale took them to be on fire,

And flew away.

7)The verdure was spread like a carpet of green velvet,

Whereupon petals of flowers were scattering gold and silver coins.

8)The red, white and Yellow Petals were falling

Scattering gold and silver on violet beds.

9)And innumerable were the fruit trees,

Fragrant and shady willows.

Rasul Mir Shahabadi

1)Weeping at the door thou fair as a houri

I was put in mind of Paradise, below which stream flow

2)Ah! I wish to hide thee in my heart,

To take you in my embrace, O my Black Beauty cypress,

And to wrap my body round the cypress-like stature as does thy garment!

3)How I long for his return:

I would offer him bowls of cream.

Alas! He was gone away and made me distraught.

What dainty dishes I would have served him!

What fine tea!

4)He has scorched me with the fire of Love.

How much patience should I have?

He cares not for me.

If only he would enter my house,

I would slay young lambs for him,

But he has made me fade in sorrow!

I am shivering in separation!

But he cares not for me!

Crave not for Pearls while thou art on the shore

Dive deep into the depths of the sea

Make garlands of jewels and weave wreaths of pearls

Shake thy lethargic body with dauntless courage.

If you act like the ignorant, You are lost.

Bestir thyself of lop down the cypress of obstruction.

Make garlands of tulips, make wreaths of pearls.

Abdul Ahad Nazim

 

Thy lover, O Beloved, is waiting for thee, with every hope.

Ignore him not, Come!

Won’t you come in the moonlight on a Thursday sacred to Chrar?

The black mole on thy cheek,

Is a thief that hides at dusk in the curls of thy hair.

At night he will raise himself

To the moonlight courtyard of thy beauty with the help of the chain

Ah! Who knows what good or evil about me

Thy tresses and thy ear-rings have said to thee?

But, was it proper for thee

To give ear to their senseless raving?

Swami Parmanand, the Sana’i of Kashmir

 

What I have sown in grain I shall reap in ears

I am tongue-tied, alas! why did I stray off my patch of search?

What to speak of cakes,

Before the grain was good to flour,

The mill has stopped

O God! Before I am drowned

Lead me safe across the sea somehow.

I am weary of asking for boons again and again

So now I ask Thee once for all

Bestow Thou favours likewise

The path is mazy (or, my belt is not tight);

The burden of sin is heavy;

The ropes are loose;

A sheep is on my back; my joints are stiff.

How shall I reach the ghat?

My destination is far off.

And the thieves of sense are organized

I pounded rocks and stones (i.e., performed great feats)

In far-off places.

But Ah! I did not know, that thereby

I was entangling myself in the worries of the world.

My steel frame made of the seven metals

Became the target to lightning darts from above

To die while one is alive is excellent sport;

It is meditation on one’s self

The contemplation of the Self apart from the Ego

Wherin everything is absorbed,

There is no room for the Ego.

That is called God

By the burning breath of love,

Every particle will be ablaze.

And water will serve as oil

The sun has no shadow,

You clear away from the place.

And all your wavering will disappear

Abdul Wahhab Pare, the Firdausi of Kashmir

On Childhood

O my childhood! you played a trick

with me like a juggler.

O childhood, you are fleeting and unreliable

You deodar of the forest, the saw (of time)

Has cut thee into little bits

And deduced thee to dust

Just now you were like a mountain torrent

Flooded and sweeping away whole hills.

But now there is nothing in You but the dust of dryness

Fight Between Rustam and Suhrab

1)First they fought with their spears

which were reduced to pieces.

2)Then both of them drew their swords,

And satisfied their thirst (for blood).

3)Then came the turn of maces,

And they began to strike like blacksmith’s hammers on anvils.

4)Both were full of sweat and wounded.

Both were weeping while apparently laughing.

5)They struck each other so furiously

That their maces were broken.

6)Now they began to fight with bows and arrows.

Attacking each other like mad elephants.

7)The arrows also were exhausted on both sides

But none of their darts proved fatal

Azizullah Haqqani

Nothing but tribulation is the way of love.

The lover must not live without tribulation

The same came out of the same.

He has neither body nor substance

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