Thy footsteps, in desert sands, are where to our famished gaze
Iram resurrected stands, its rose beds all ablaze.
That Beauty's mole miss kiss her lip, must so trouble and amaze
Reason we now let slip & Reality e'en lower appraise.
Tho' the rapture of your beholding mere human havoc plays
Yet less Cosmic is the tumult, Doomsday itself displays.
To find the Ninja who, by dark, attacks, foils Day's detective rays
For, fleeing my heart, assassin tracks, Night as its Sun assays.
Now lost to her own looking glass, alas! her not the spectacle sways
Of her lovers as lost to a mirrored, for, but blind alley, maze.
In a goliard's tuneful tatters, cloak, Ghalib, Thought's gilded lays
For Princes now are paupers & only tadpoles croak thy praise.
3 comments:
Apropos of the line about the beauty spot- there's an interesting web site which explains the hidden meaning of moles, and artificial beauty spots.
'Beauty spots had a specific meaning, which depended on their location on the skin.
Here Giuseppe Tassini's description:
Near the mouth they meant voluptuousness. There were TWO possible areas: close to the underlips, in which case the mosquete were called civette (literally owl, but in italian it means also "One given to flirting", i.e: coquette) and close to the corners of the mouth, in which case the moschete were called assassine literally: "able to kill". '
Utter Crap! In trying to make the words rhyme the essence of the poem has been completely waylaid
What is the essence of Ghalib's poem?
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