Beauty and dance and wine and light and melody Are the curves and lines the very fiber of that hundred- hued painting For which through centuries The heart ears eyes of mankind Have all been in abandoned search I was in this city lost and alone' Here life is a fresh melody Continuous but still fresh Here life from moment to moment with new and ever- increasing Vigor is striding ahead Here that peace in whose warm and gentle cradle We Asians have been raised Throws mocking laughter only from a great distance But I was in this very city lost and sad and alone' Lost and sad and alone That we Asians Who for centuries have drunk to the dream of dignity Have kept saying Our blood is the cure of the wound of the West Our very breath the splendor of Empire the glory of God' Lost and sad and alone How long wilt we attached to worn-out illusions From the embrace of the mysterious pleasure of well-being So continue to drink the poison of destiny*? How many more years will we live as beggars9 As I thought this The spell of creation in the light of a new morning through a half-opened Bashful window peered at me—But »n this way as though in one glance From the iron breast of the Himalaya and Alwand A ooundless flood of love had begun to flow And in this flood creation and eternity were linked Translated by Mark Pegors with Kha'ique A Khatique & Frances Pntchett Annual of Urdu Studies #5 52