'Noor Jahan' by Dr Saleem Wahid Saleem
The primeval and eternal
Decree of the Fates
For man upon this earth
Is that he live out his days
In a deep unutterable
Loneliness of the mind
Wherein he can count on none...
Nor kith, nor kin,
Nor friends, nor comrades!
In the silence of the night
A myriad of twinkling stars
Go swimming in space,
Each intent on its own course,
Packed so thick and close
They almost seem to overlap!
But all this close proximity
Is only a delusion:
At the back there lies
An endless sense of separation,
A yawning chasm,
An unbridgeable gulf! Even where
Broods the same torture
Of dreary distance, and the same
Unutterable loneliness of the mind,
(LONELINESS-2)
Whether we live in towns,
Or seek peace in the quiet
Of barren wastes!
For t he primeval and eternal
Decree of the Fates
For man upon this earth
Is that he live out his days?
In a deep, unutterable
Loneliness of the mind
Wherein he can count on none...
Nor kith, nor kin
Nor comrades, nor friends!
On the lonely heaths of live
Forever surge and roll
Pressing throngs, but each wayfarer
Oblivious of others,
Each distracted in his own place:
Craving for friendship,
For love and sympathy,
Which, all the same,
Each refuses to the other!
The heart of each
Is torn and bleeding,
But he bleeds in the secrecy
Of his own breast!
How fares the neighbour,
No one knows;
And cares even less!
For the primeval and eternal
Decree of the Fates For man upon this earth
Is that he live out his day
(LONELINESS-3)
In a deep, unutterable
Loneliness of the mind
Wherein he can count on None---
Nor kith, nor kin,
Nor comrades, nor friends!
Countless souls in the wide
But barren fields of life
Stand with tissues torn
And mangled, each burning
In its own grief...almost
Burnt to a heap of ashes!
They groan from a lashing pain
That springs from a sense
Of vain, deluding joys....
From the ceaseless torment
Of elusive hopes!
The pain of each is all his own,
The grief of each exclusive;
For the primeval and eternal
Decree of the Fates
For man upon this earth
Is that he live out his days
In a deep, unutterable
Loneliness of the mind,
Wherein he can count on None....
Nor kith, nor kin,
Nor comrades, nor friends!
From the sizzling fires
Of an un forgettable torture,
Flowers in the garden
And plants gasp for breath:
At every step beautiful bodies
Bathe in the their own blood....
To beautify themselves!
But who knows? Or who cares?
And thus for ever and ever
The flames shall leap and dance....
For the primeval and eternal
Decree of the fates
For man upon this earth
Is that he live out his days
In a deep, unutterable
Loneliness of the mind,
wherein he can count on None.....
Nor kith, nor kin,
Nor comrades, nor friends!
In the whirling waves
Are millions of isles,
Dotted out we know not where:
Their virgin soil
Has never been pressed
By a human heel;
Their silence has never
Been broken by a human cry
Even such is each human heart...
A voiceless isle,
A dumb smudge of a helpless mass,
Adrift on a heartless sea!
For the primeval and eternal
(Loneliness-4)
Decree of the Fates
For man upon this earth
Is that he live out his days
In a deep, unutterable
Loneliness of the mind,
Nor kith, nor kin,
Nor comrades, nor friends!
He has always like this,
And always like this he'll be....
This creature called Man!
Every grief he has borne like this,
And every grief he will bear!
but into the depths
Of another heart he'll
Never learn to penetrate:
He'll never make it feel for him !
No word of the dumb torture
He carries in his breast
Shall ever rise to his lips...
And no one shall ever hear
His cry of anguish,
For the primeval and eternal
Decree of the Fates
For man upon this earth
is that he live out his days
In a deep , unutterable
Loneliness of the mind,
Wherein he can count on none....
nor kith , nor kin,
Nor comrades, nor friends!
ell.
