ash’aar
raat yuuN dil meN terii khoii huuii yaad aaii
jaise viraane meN chupke se bahaar aa jaae
jaise sahraaoN meN haule se chale baad-e-nasiim
jaise biimaar ko bevajah qaraar aa jaae
–Faiz Ahmed Faiz, with a hat tip to Mirza Ghalib:
un ke dekhe se jo aa jaatī hai muñh par raunaq
vo samajhte haiñ ki bīmār kā haal achchhā hai
By V.G. Kiernan
Poems By Faiz, p.49
Verses
Last night your faded memory so came into the heart
As spring comes in the wilderness quietly,
As the zephyr moves slowly in deserts
As rest comes without cause to a sick man
Last Night
Last night your faded memory filled my heart
Like spring’s calm advent in the wilderness,
Like the soft desert footfalls of the breeze,
Like peace somehow coming to one in sickness.
—
By Vikram Seth
Mappings, Pg 43
Last night your faded memory came to me
As in the wilderness spring comes quietly,
As, slowly, in the desert, moves the breeze,
As, to a sick man, without cause, comes peace.
—
By Daud Kamal
The Unicorn and the Dancing Girl, Pg 28
The Curve of Memory
Last night
When
I thought
Of you
All the deserts
Became
Fragrant
With zephyrs.
Spring
Was everywhere
And
My dying heart
Suddenly
Came back
To life.
—
By Shiv K. Kumar
Faiz Ahmed Faiz: Selected Poems, Pg 3
Quatrain
Last night a fugitive memory of you slid into my heart
as though a wilderness was quietly touched by springtide,
as though some breeze came soughing through a desert,
as someone sick, for no reason, felt reclaimed
—
By Agha Shahid Ali
Rebel’s Silhouette, Pg 3
Last Night
At night my lost memory of you returned
and I was like the empty field where springtime,
without being noticed, is bringing flowers;
I was like the desert over which
the breeze moves gently, with great care;
I was like the dying patient
who, for no reason, smiles.
Juvenilia 