सुगन्धिः कोऽपि स्यात्कुसुमसमये कोऽपि विटपी
शलाटौ सामोदः फलपरिणतौ कापि सुरभिः ।
प्रसूनप्रारम्भात्प्रभृति फलपाकावधि पुन
र्जगत्येकत्रैव स्फुरति सहकारे परिमलः ॥
उमापतिधरस्य
Some grow fragrant when buds push out.
Some sweeten as unripe tree-fruits.
Some scent the air in hung ripeness.
No sooner have the fruits begun to ripen again
Than perfume suffuses the world here in the mango.
— Umāpatidhara (1100s)
Adapted from Makhdoom Mohiuddin
Rumours of spring—they last from dawn till dusk—
All eyes decipher branches for blossoms.
Your legend now equals our thirst, Beloved —
Your word has spread across broken nations.
Wherever each night I’m lost to myself,
they hear from me of Her—of Her alone.
Hope extinguished, now nothing else remains—
only nights of anguish, these ochre dawns.
The garden’s eyes well up, the flower’s heart beats
When we speak, just speak O! Forever.
So it has, and forever it should last—
this rumour the Beloved shares our pain.
– Agha Shahid Ali
Makhdoom’s ghazal
sahar se raat kī sargoshiyāñ bahār kī baat
jahāñ meñ aam huī chashm-e-intizār kī baat
diloñ kī tishnagī jitnī diloñ kā ġham jitnā
usī qadar hai zamāne meñ husn-e-yār kī baat
jahāñ bhī baiThe haiñ jis jā bhī raat mai pī hai
unhī kī āñkhoñ ke qisse unhī ke pyaar kī baat
chaman kī aañkh bhar aa.ī kalī kā dil dhaḌkā
laboñ pe aa.ī hai jab bhī kisī qarār kī baat
ye zard zard ujāle ye raat raat kā dard
yahī to rah ga.ī ab jān-e-be-qarār kī baat
tamām umr chalī hai tamām umr chale
ilāhī ḳhatm na ho yār-e-ġham-gusār kī baat
सहर से रात की सरगोशियाँ बहार की बात
जहाँ में आम हुई चश्म-ए-इन्तिज़ार की बात
दिलों की तिश्नगी जितनी दिलों का ग़म जितना
उसी क़दर है ज़माने में हुस्न-ए-यार की बात
जहाँ भी बैठे हैं जिस जा भी रात मय पी है
उन्ही की आँखों के क़िस्से उन्ही के प्यार की बात
चमन की आँख भर आई कली का दिल धड़का
लबों पे आई है जब भी किसी क़रार की बात
ये ज़र्द ज़र्द उजाले ये रात रात का दर्द
यही तो रह गई अब जान-ए-बे-क़रार की बात
तमाम उम्र चली है तमाम उम्र चले
इलाही ख़त्म न हो यार-ए-ग़म-गुसार की बात
– Makhdoom Mohiuddin
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
– Edna St. Vincent Millay
the slime of all my yesterdays
rots in the hollow of my skull
and if my stomach would contract
because of some explicable phenomenon
such as pregnancy or constipation
I would not remember you
or that because of sleep
infrequent as a moon of greencheese
that because of food
nourishing as violet leaves
that because of these
and in a few fatal yards of grass
in a few spaces of sky and treetops
a future was lost yesterday
as easily and irretrievably
as a tennis ball at twilight
– Sylvia Plath
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period –
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.
It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.
Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay –
A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.
– Emily Dickinson
O were my love yon Lilac fair,
Wi’ purple blossoms to the Spring,
And I, a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing!
How I wad mourn when it was torn
By Autumn wild, and Winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing,
When youthfu’ May its bloom renew’d.
O gin my love were yonred rose,
That grows upon the castle wa’;
And I myself a drapo’ dew,
Into her bonie breast to fa’!
O there, beyond expression blest,
I’d feast on beauty a’ the night;
Seal’d on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
Till fley’d awaby Phoebus’ light!
– Robert Burns
1793
Type: Song
Tune: Hughie Graham.
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
– Philip Larkin
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
– Billy Collins
वही आदर्श मौसम
और मन में कुछ टूटता-सा :
अनुभव से जानता हूँ कि यह वसंत है
That very same
ideal season
And something
breaking in the heart
Experience tells me:
this is spring
– Raghuvir Sahay
Juvenilia 