Faiz Ahmad Faiz Quotes

Before you came,
things were as they should be:
the sky was the dead-end of sight,
the road was just a road, wine merely wine.

Now everything is like my heart,
a color at the edge of blood:
the grey of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,
the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the coal of dead fires.

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt wet with tears,
the road a vein about to break,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the world keep changing.

Don't leave now that you're here -
Stay. So the world may become like itself again:
so the sky may be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

There are many other pleasures - besides the pleasure of physical union.

On the far horizon waved some flicker of light
My heart, a city of suffering, awoke in a state of dream
My eyes, turning restless, still dreaming,
the morning, dawning in this vacuous abode of separation.

Desire"

I have certainly
no faith in miracles, yet I long
that when death comes to take me
from this great song
of a world, it permits me to return
to your door and knock
and knock
and call out: "If you need someone

to share your anguish, your simplest pain,
then let me be the one.
If not, let me again

embark, this time never
to return, in that final direction,
forever.

I have certainly
I have certainly

The true subject of poetry is the loss of the beloved.

Be near me now,
My tormenter, my love, be near me -
At this hour when night comes down,
When, having drunk from the gash of sunset, darkness comes
With the balm of musk in its hands, its diamond lancets,
When it comes with cries of lamentation,
with laughter with songs;
Its blue-gray anklets of pain clinking with every step.
At this hour when hearts, deep in their hiding places,
Have begun to hope once more, when they start their vigil
For hands still enfolded in sleeves;
When wine being poured makes the sound
of inconsolable children
who, though you try with all your heart,
cannot be soothed.
When whatever you want to do cannot be done,
When nothing is of any use;
- At this hour when night comes down,
When night comes, dragging its long face,
dressed in mourning,
Be with me,
My tormenter, my love, be near me.