Ghalib's Ghazals — Other Translations



Ghazal 5

The joy of the drop is to die in the river
when pain is cureless pain is lost


Our weakness has weakened even our tears
desperate and hoping this water is air


Spring clear after heavy rains it seems the cloud
has wept and died in its grief completely


To understand the wonder of an air that cleans
see how moss on the mirror grows in spring


The rose is budding a desire for its witness
her color and shape are silent but listen


translation by Jim Yagmin


Ghazal 8

It's time for the world to hear Ghalib again
may these words and shadows like doors stay open


Night of the watered face of stars has dawned
ordered and scattered like flowers where beauty sleeps


She is talking and talking who knows my desire
at least already her lips have opened


Why is grief an element of night when everything falls
when open eyes of stars look only to other faces


Tell me how I am happy this ocean from home
when mail from my beloved is already opened


translation by Jim Yagmin


Ghazal 10

I saw the blaze in a friend but avoided flame
I burn only when seeing my own power to see


Don't call me a fire-lover like all of the others
when I fight I cause fires too busy to tend


Many have tested themselves on the neck of wine's vessel
as she walks the waves of wine tremble


We have sold ourselves along with our poems
but not anyone can purchase these things


The illuminating light was not meant for Mount Sinai
good wine should be poured to a glass that can hold it


translation by Jim Yagmin


Ghazal 12

Not the blossom of song not the veil of music
I am the sound of my own breaking


You toy with the length of your dark curls
I am captive to my own dark thoughts


We brag to ourselves that we are different
this weakness has burdened our simple grief


Now you have come and I find myself bowing
this blessing a sadness this prayer a longing


I am a fragment sounding the dawn
you are the walls of my every echo


translation by Jim Yagmin


Ghazal 13

No meetings no leavings
no days nights no years


Who has time to deal with love
no more delight in beauty's witness


Love is every imagined beloved
no more such graceless thinking


Weeping blood is not so easy
I have no strength no stable heart


My loving arms have turned feeble
no balance of elements in this world


translation by Jim Yagmin


Ghazal 14

Wings are like dust for the winds to carry
otherwise feathers would be impatient and strengthless


What basic beauty approaches like this
not even dust on her path only shadows of flowers


Those who are drunk have seen a flower's shadow
else there would be nothing not even dust in the taverns


I have been humbled by these explosions of love
in this room not even dust just desire to construct


Now these words are I know are a simple pastime
not even dust could be gained by writing


translation by Jim Yagmin


Ghazal 19

At every step I am closer only to knowing the distance
as fast as I run the desert runs on


The moon is loneliness and churning flames
a shadow facing the rising smoke


My blisters have bled across the desert
my path is lit like pearls on skin


Because of you the bottle reflects every color
I am the one who has tasted each one


From my eye a fire bleeds what it has seen
the earth and dry leaves of the garden are lit


translation by Jim Yagmin


Ghazal 21

The dew on red petals is not without meaning
the spot on her heart where shame has passed


Dove is a handful of ash the nightingale a prison of color
to these the scar of a burnt heart is nothing


The fire itself could not do what lust for fire has
the heart has suffered waiting and fading


The claim to be love's prisoner is a consequence of constraint
only a hand trapped by stone can promise its faithfulness


Sun of our world illuminate us now
like a shadow a strange time has come upon us


translation by Jim Yagmin


The numbering of these ghazals is from Aijaz Ahmad's 1971 collection, Ghazals of Ghalib.