IQBAL'S QUATRAINS IN ARMUGHAN-I HIJAZ*

Q. A. Kabir, Tr.

Who brought the wide world on the cosmos scene?

Who flashed the sheen of the "Beauty Unseen"?

You bid me look out for the Satan's teen;

Who reared him to teem on the Gardens green ?

My heart not prisoned is writhing with pain,

Is he destined for a prize or a sheer disdain?

I wished not to hurt the Satan's heart too,

So often my sins—God bless--were true.

O AMRINE, thou hast reversed the cup of Wine

While the Cup had to move from right-hand line;

 If this is fashion of thy fellowship lore

By the sacred "WALL" bang the flask and bowl.

The self-diving hearts are captives of Lures,

All victims of pains and wriggling for Cures;

Thou seekest my kowtows but see that Kings

Are never prone to tax the desolated Wings.

My mind often rakes in man's "how" and "why,"

The glance getting higher than Stars and Sky;

So hurl this heart in a ruined hellish heat,

This heathen is mad for a lone retreat.

Why the Mud and Clay make a roaring glee

A hundred Love trials one heart would see;

A moment's rest is destined not to me,

Me forbear my deeds are linked with Heart and me.

From whence I hail and whither will I go,

I gather no gains from the seeds I sow;

I fear not the griefs on a point please see,

I wish not the griefs not worthy of me.

Keep off my wine from the shallow-hearted meeks,

Hold the ripe rum from the raws and the weaks,

As we keep the spark away from the reeds and hay,

So hold for the known and keep the crowd away.

Thou hast no quest in thy efforts and zeals,

No wounds and scars and stirring writhing reels,

To the empyrean Stay I preferred a flight,

It was void of wails of the mid of night.

Bid me shake the world with a cry and hue,

Get change on the globe with a complex new,

From the dust of mine make an Adam again,

Kill the bonds and slaves of the Loss and Gain.

The gloom still lurking in the broad daylight,

His right is ne'er right but the might is right;

I know not how far he stoops to his doom,

From the Adam's blood get a glow and bloom.

Thy slave I am and seek thy pleasure alone,

I tread not a path not guided and shown;

If thou ever bids this silly slave to say,

An ass a Berber horse I would not say.

I wish not this World nor the Cosmos whole,

Save that I know the essence of the Soul,[1]

So kindle my kowtows with melting delight,[2]

Bid me move the world with an ecstatic light.

A Moslem tied down to a European fold,

 is heart cannot be with ease in his hold;

From the head I knocked at an alien's door,

 This bow can't be in Bu Zar-o Salmān's lore.[3]

I seek for this nation a rising field jurists,

With jurists confused and too hard to yield;

The woes I have seen I wish not to spot,

Alas my mother had mothered me not!

Notes and References