You cannot tell whether you see a group of revelers or mourners in the shadows dancing around the distant lamps, and from here you cannot tell whether the color streaming down the walls is that of blood or roses Prison Daybreak Though it was still night the moon stood beside my pillow and said "Wake up, the wine of sleep that was your portion is finished The wineglass is empty Morning is here " I said goodbye to my beloved's image in the biack satin waters of the night that hung still and stagnant on the world Here and there silver nebulas of stars dropped from the moon's white hand They went under, rose again to float, faded and opened For a long time night and daybreak lay locked together in each other's arms In the prison yard my comrade s faces incandescent as candlelight, flickered through the gloom Sleep had washed them with its dew, turned them into gold For that moment these faces were rinsed clean of grief for our people, absolved from the pain of separation from their dear ones In the distance a gong struck the hour, the wretched guards began their morning shuffle, arm in arm with the prisoners back and forth, lockstepped to their terrible laments Breezes awaken still reefing from the drunkenness of sleep Mutilated voices broken on the rack awaken Somewhere a door opened another one closed, a chain muttered grumbled, shrieked out lout Somewhere a knife tore into the solar plexis of a lock. a window went mad and began to beat its own head This is the way the enemies of life, shaken from sleep showed themselves These daemons carved from stone and steel, Annual of Urdu Studies. ^5 112