Ghazal No. 1

When spring made of the garden a veritable concert hall, the nightingale’s impassioned songs made buds open their eyes.

Do not imagine that the clay we are; was fashioned when the world was made; for we are still a thought in Being’s mind.

Do not preen yourself on your scholarship. It takes much more to drink with decorum. The city jurist, when he drank, spilled his wine all over his dress.

All that spring did was that it put together scattered leaves. It is our eye that lends colour and brightness to the tulip.

This is the sign of one who has his eye fixed on his inner self: He speaks no more of present things and absent things.

One night a witty old man in the tavern made an apt remark. He said: ‘In every age there is an Abraham, and there is also Nimrod’s fire.’

What forms I shaped in life’s workshop! What passing things have passed away! And what things that were there are now no more!

Speak gently to the idol-worshipper; for Love, that brooks no slight, laid the foundations of an idol-house in Mahmud’s heart itself.

In India life’s anthem is devoid of all effect; for even David’s songs cannot breathe life into the dead.