Mirza Ghalib English Translations 4

MIRZA GHALIB ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Urdu poems about speech and to speak, the spoken word, thoughts, roses, life, secrets, joy, pain, vows, critics, the heart. Hearing my speech, accomplished critics enjoined me to accessibility, but my thoughts are complex and if I don’t speak, I’m even harder to understand! —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The rose bestows her glory, true, but you have to open your eyes, Ghalib! —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The shroud veiled my nakedness; otherwise clothed, I disgraced life. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Confide in no one, Ghalib, for these days no one keeps secrets, save the doors and walls. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch When it’s allied with the enemy, there’s no trusting the heart. My sighs? Ineffectual. My laments? In vain. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Let me be punished, not tortured, since I’m merely a sinner, not an infidel. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Something accounts for my reticence, otherwise I can speak, can’t I? —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch GHALIB ON LIFE AND LOVE In a dream I transacted business with you, but when I awoke there was neither profit nor loss. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch All I know of my heart is this: the more I sought it, the more you found it. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch How to describe the intensity of her eyelashes? I strung my clotted blood into coral prayer beads. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch All my longings were silenced, transformed to blood. Thus I became the extinguished lamp on a pauper’s grave. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Alas, union with her was not my destiny. Our life together would only have meant more procrastination. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I knew from your delicacy that your vows were nebulous. Had one been firm, it could not have been so easily broken. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Joy is a drop in Oblivion’s river, but boundless pain soon becomes its cure. —Mirza Ghalib, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch