अपनी मर्ज़ी से कहाँ अपने सफ़र के हम हैं

अपनी मर्ज़ी से कहाँ अपने सफ़र के हम हैं
रुख़ हवाओं का जिधर का है उधर के हम हैं

पहले हर चीज़ थी अपनी मगर अब लगता है
अपने ही घर में किसी दूसरे घर के हम हैं

वक़्त के साथ है मिट्टी का सफ़र सदियों तक
किसको मालूम कहाँ के हैं किधर के हम हैं

चलते रहते हैं कि चलना है मुसाफ़िर का नसीब
सोचते रहते हैं कि किस राहगुज़र के हम हैं

गिनतियों में ही गिने जाते हैं हर दौर में हम
हर क़लमकार की बेनाम ख़बर के हम हैं.

---निदा फ़ाज़ली

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

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
Friends are enemies sometimes, and enemies friends.

I was a tiny bug. Now a mountain. I was left behind. Now honored at the head. You healed my wounded hunger and anger, and made me a poet who sings about joy.

If your guidance is your ego, don’t rely on luck for help. you sleep during the day and the nights are short. By the time you wake up your life may be over.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded. Someone sober will worry about events going badly. Let the lover be.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

Most people guard against going into the fire, and so end up in it.

My friend, the sufi is the friend of the present moment. To say tomorrow is not our way.

Nightingales are put in cages because their songs give pleasure. Whoever heard of keeping a crow?

No longer a stranger, you listen all day to these crazy love-words. Like a bee you fill hundreds of homes with honey, though yours is a long flight from here.

No mirror ever became iron again; No bread ever became wheat; No ripened grape ever became sour fruit. Mature yourself and be secure from a change for the worse. Become the light.

Only from the heart Can you touch the sky.

Patience is the key to joy.

People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another.

Since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening.

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.

The intelligent want self-control; children want candy.

The middle path is the way to wisdom.

The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.

Thirst drove me down to the water where I drank the moon’s reflection.

To praise is to praise how one surrenders to the emptiness.

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.

We rarely hear the inward music, but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless.

You think the shadow is the substance.

---Jalal-Uddin Rumi (1207-1273)

Write down ! I am an Arab

Write down !
I am an Arab
And my identity card number is fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth will come after a summer
Will you be angry?

Write down!
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks..
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?

Write down!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew

My father.. descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather..was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house is like a watchman’s hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title!

Write down!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks..
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!

Therefore!
Write down on the top of the first page:
I do not hate poeple
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper’s flesh will be my food

Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger!
---Mahmoud Darwish