Do not ask me, my love, for the love I gave you once.
I used to think that with you there, life would shine;
that if I had your sorrow, what were the world’s troubles to me?
that your face kept the springs of the world alive;
that there was nothing in the world except your eyes;
that if I had you, fate itself would bow.
It was never so. I only wished it so.
There are other sorrows in the world than love,
and other comforts than the comfort of being together.
Note
मिरी महबूब addresses a woman: मिरी is the feminine “my”. The couplet beginning और भी दुख हैं is often quoted on its own, and it comes back at the end of the poem.
The dark and brutal spells of countless centuries,
woven into silk and satin and brocade;
bodies sold everywhere, in lanes and markets,
rolled in the dust and bathed in blood.
Note
बहीमाना comes from बहीम, “beast”. The silk, satin and brocade are the finery of the rich, woven out of centuries of cruelty.
bodies coming out of the ovens of disease,
pus running from rotting sores.
My eyes go back to those things too; what can I do?
Your beauty still pulls at me, but what can I do?
Note
क्या कीजे, “what is one to do”, is a helpless shrug, and it ends both of the last two lines.
There are other sorrows in the world than love,
and other comforts than the comfort of being together.
Do not ask me, my love, for the love I gave you once.