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Poetry

Nargas:
Prem Kahani

A Poem by Bhai VIR SINGH. Translated from Punjabi by PURAN SINGH

 

 

 

He came this way; that way he went;
I saw him and I lost him.
He was but now before my eyes;
He has just gone that way.
He has just gone, and cannot yet return.
Ask me not what I am doing in the open -- in the rain, sunshine and storm !
Touch me not, advise me not!
He came this way; that way he went.
I saw him and I lost him.
He was just before my eyes;
I am not searching for him,
I am but looking the way he went;
They said he would not return;
But my left hand shades my eyes,
And I look --my eyelids do not droop -- on the road that he has gone.

My eyes close not, they are still looking for him who hath not yet returned,
He who wakes in me ever new a thousand feelings yet unborn, and things of love unknown to me --
He, he, who took my heart away by one glance at me !
Touch me not, advise me no more, pray !
I am not concerned with the hundred roads that go;
I sit, and here I will sit, by this road where he has gone;
I will wait here for him.
I will fix my eyes on this road,
He will look this way,
For this way I saw him go.

I am sad now for his love,
I will still sit and wait for him,
And let pass the pageant of the world.
It shall be nothing to me, if ages pass;
He will soon be coming this way.
Touch me not, advise me no more !
My mind has let go the hold of all the things it had;
It is only an eye, a beautiful eye, a fixed gaze, an unwearying look, a woman’s vow;
It is only looking in the way I saw him go.

My mind is filled with sudden joy;
I feel he is coming, my eyes burn brighter;
But my heart soon fails with pain again, and my eyes grow dim with tears.
O the pain grows unbearable !
And my eyes mourn as if the life of my life has gone from me for ever.
I caution myself; no such ill forebodings will I allow to rule within.

My eyes glow again from a hundred auspicious signs,
I make offerings of joy to gods,
And I look along the way he went—surely he cannot be very far!
Day changes into night and night into day,
But change not my eyes.
They are fixed now for ever; They have forgotten how to close,
They know no sleep, no rest;
My life needs neither meat nor drink,
It is all at gaze, on the way that he has gone.

Touch me not, advise me no more !
Destroy the tasks of duty !
Let go, in the great fire of death and change, the deeds and the calls of life!
My vocation of life is this. Go from me. I am not yours !
My body fails, let it fail, let it fade and extinguish !
But never shall the gaze of my eyes turn from the way that he has gone!
Touch me not, advise me no more !
Life goes, let it go;
My soul is in my eyes, that look along the way he will return to me.
Let eye and brain dissolve,
Let limb after limb fail,
Let my stems and my leaves drop;
But let my eyes last a little while more !
My life is in my eyes,
The elements try in vain to dry me up by drying blood and flesh and bone.
There is a little lamp of life lit by love and set in the shrine of my eyes,
And I tell you the winds of death know not how to blow it out.
It is the light of the beloved,
That bums in the infinite storm of change, unchanged in my eyes.
My eyes are a spark of heaven;
I live and live as long as heaven is,
As long as love and life are.
My eyes beam and glisten,
And they are fixed for ever on the road he has gone !
They shall look without an eyelid’s droop for ever along that way.
All other limbs are dead, let them die; but let my eyes remain.
The green stem has turned dry,
But heaven and earth feed the life in my eyes.
Heaven and earth nurse them who have ceased to nurse themselves,
Eternity now is mine !
My eyes have been looking along the way my love has gone from me.

In the name of Allah, I swear,
I had but one glimpse of him !
He came this way, that way he went,
I saw him, and I lost him.
He was but now before my eyes.
He has gone, and hath not yet returned.
It was but one glance, one glance that made me so selfless.
It was one glance that made me for ever pale and white.
And on and on for ever, I look for him !
He made me death-pale, white and ill;
He took my sleep and rest away.

O Allah ! I had but one glimpse of him !
My eyes are as cups held in a beggar’s hands, waiting still to be filled with love.
He came this way, that way he went!
I saw him and I lost him.
He was but now before my eyes.
He has gone, my love has gone that way !
He has gone, and hath not yet returned

 

[From Nargas: Songs of a Sikh, by Bhai Vir Singh.]

October 20, 2012

Conversation about this article

1: Pritam Singh Grewal (Canada), October 20, 2012, 3:57 PM.

Beautifully translated. "Nargas" reminds me of the unassuming presence of violets (banafshaa) and sweet-smelling roses adorning the poems of Dr.(Bhai) Vir Singh ji.

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Prem Kahani"









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