हर ख़ुशी में कोई कमी सी है

हर ख़ुशी में कोई कमी सी है
हँसती आँखों में भी नमी सी है

दिन भी चुप चाप सर झुकाये था
रात की नफ़्ज़ भी थमी सी है

किसको समझायेँ किसकी बात नहीं
ज़हन और दिल में फिर ठनी सी है

ख़्वाब था या ग़ुबार था कोई
गर्द इन पलकों पे जमी सी है

कह गए हम किससे दिल की बात
शहर में एक सनसनी सी है

हसरतें राख हो गईं लेकिन
आग अब भी कहीं दबी सी है

---जावेद अख़्तर

मुमकिन है सफ़र हो आसान

मुमकिन है सफ़र हो आसान, अब साथ भी चल कर देखें
कुछ तुम भी बदल कर देखो, कुछ हम भी बदल कर देखें

दो-चार कदम हर रस्ता, पहले की तरह लगता है
शायद कोई मंज़र बदले, कुछ दूर तो चल कर देखें

झूठा ही सही ये रिश्ता, मिलते ही रहे हम यूँ ही
हालात नहीं बदलें , चेहरे ही बदल कर देखें

सूरज की तपिश भी देखी, शोलों कि कशिश भी देखी
अबके जो घटाएं छायें, बरसात में जल कर देखें

अब वक़्त बचा है कितना, जो और लड़ें दुनिया से
दुनिया की नसीहत पर भी थोडा सा अमल कर देखें.

---निदा फ़ाज़ली

She walks in beauty

She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to the tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One ray the more, one shade the less
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

--- George Gordon, Lord Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

--- George Gordon, Lord Byron (from Childe Harold, Canto iv, Verse 178)

Break, break, break

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

---Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

In Memoriam A. H. H. , Section 5

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given outline and no more.

---Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Tennyson wrote In Memoriam, which consists of 133 sections; A. H. H. stands for Arthur Henry Hallam. Hallam was a close friend of Tennyson's who was also engaged to Tennyson's sister. He died before the wedding at the age of 22.

हर हक़ीक़त मजाज़ हो जाये

हर हक़ीक़त मजाज़ हो जाये
काफ़िरों की नमाज़ हो जाये

मिन्नत-ए-चारासाज़ कौन करे
दर्द जब जाँ नवाज़ हो जाये

इश्क़ दिल में रहे तो रुसवा हो
लब पे आये तो राज़ हो जाये

लुत्फ़ का इन्तज़ार करता हूँ
जोर ता हद्द-ए-नाज़ हो जाये

उम्र बेसूद कट रही है 'फ़ैज़'
काश अफ़्शा-ए-राज़ हो जाये.

---फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़