THE  DEW  AND  THE  STARS

Introduction
In this poem ‘All«mah Iqb«l has gone on a flight of poetic imagination. The inhabitants of the celestial world do not  know anything about the terrestrial world  and its inhabitants. Dew is the only entity which visits both these worlds. So the stars ask the dew about terrestrial world and its affairs. They are surprised to hear about  the anomalies of the earthly life which, in their opinion, was all good.

Translation
One night stars started saying this to the dew
“Every morning new sights are available to you

Who  knows how many worlds you have seen!
Relics of those who rose and fell you have seen

Venus has heard this news from an angel
That human habitation is very far from the sky

                Tell us the tale of this beautiful realm
                The ode of whose love the moon sings”

“O stars ! Do not ask me about the earth’s garden
A place of sighs and wailing it is, not a garden

The zephyr comes from there only to return
The poor flower-bud opens only to wither

What can I tell you how garden-brightening the flower-bud is
Some little flame without warmth the flower-bud is

The rose cannot hear the nightingale’s call
It cannot pick up the pearls from my skirt

The melodious birds are imprisoned, it is outrageous
The thorns grow just under  the rose, it is outrageous

The eye of the sick narcissus always remains wet
The heart longs for sight, but the eye is sightless

The elm tree is tormented with the  heat of complaint
 The elm tree is nominally free but is really a prisoner

The stars are the sparks  of sighs to the human eye
In the rose garden’s language I am only lament’s cry

Circumambulation of moon round the earth ignorance is
It thinks there the cure for its  scar of Love is

                The foundation of the world’s abode is in the air1
                It is the picture of lament on the sheet of space !”