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by Ghalib

سراپا رہنِ عشق و نا گزیرِ الفتِ ہستی

عبادت برق کی کرتا ہوں اور افسوس حاصل کا

بقدرِ ظرف ہے ساقی! خمارِ تشنہ کامی بھی

جوتو دریائے مے ہے، تو میں خمیازہ ہوں ساحل کا

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by Ghalib

Love-crazed yet craving life. I worship fire

But recant when lightning finds me out.

If your ships carry wine, my shores are dry.

My thirst is primordial, Saqi try me out.

translated from Urdu by M. Shahid Alam

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Ghalib is pen name of Mirza Asadullah Khan (d. 1869). He was born in Agra and died in Delhi. Although most of his writings are in Persian, his claim to eminence rests on his slim Urdu divan (collection of ghazals) and the letters he

wrote in Urdu.

M. Shahid Alam’s translations of Ghalib have appeared or are forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Chicago Review, and Beloit Poetry Journal.

Circumference

Poetry in Translation

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