بچہ اور شمع
English title: THE CHILD AND THE CANDLE
O Child with moth-like nature , "How strange that | You keep gazing at the flame of the candle for hours
What is this movement, when you are in my lap? | Are you intending to embrace the light?
Though your tiny heart is surprised at this spectacle | But this is recognition of some object already seen!
The candle is but a flame, you are the Light embodied | Ah! In this assembly that is manifest, you are concealed
It is not known why the Nature's hand made it manifest! | And concealed you in the dark soil's mantle
Your light has been concealed under the veil of Intellect! | The veil of Cognition is a mere mist to the wise eye!
What is called life really a mirage it is | A dream, a swoon, an ecstasy, oblivion it is
The Nature's assembly is the Beauty's boundless ocean | For the discerning eye every drop is the Beauty's storm
Beauty is in the frightening silence of the mountain | In shedding of sun's light, and in night's darkness
It is in the morning sky's mirror-like glitter | In the night's darkness and in the twilight's floridity
It is in the disappearing relics of the old magnificence | In the small child's effort to commence speaking
It is in the harmony of the denizens of the rose-garden | In the nest-building efforts of the tiny little birds
In the mountain stream, in the ocean's freedom is Beauty | In the city, the forest, the wilderness, the habitation is Beauty
The soul but longing for some lost object is | Or else why is it lamenting in wilderness like a bell ?
It is restless even in this general splendor of Beauty | Its life is like a fish out of water
Sources and translator credits
- Original text transcription: Bang-e-Dara — بچہ اور شمع — Digital transcription file at commit 39d44fc0c2b8ca25769c4b36e6eac4d90cb42b35; the source dataset does not identify the underlying print edition.Verified against this pinned digital transcription file; not checked against a print edition.Source
- Iqbal Demystified source list: Bang-e-Dara — Pinned digital dataset commit 39d44fc0c2b8ca25769c4b36e6eac4d90cb42b35; the underlying print edition is not identified by the dataset.Community dataset list; not reconciled against a print edition.Source
- Pinned digital source list 001 (Bang-e-Dara section headings) — Pinned repository commit 39d44fc0c2b8ca25769c4b36e6eac4d90cb42b35; digital transcription, not a selected print edition.Verified against this pinned digital transcription file; not checked against a print edition.Source
- English translations in the Bang-e-Dara digital anthology excerpt — Recovered Urdu poetry anthology PDF excerpt; publication title and year are not established by the preserved source packet (bang-english.pdf, 105 PDF pages).Translation by M.A.K. Khalil; Passages are individually credited in the recovered PDF as “Translated by M.A.K. Khalil”; exact source and credit PDF page locators are stored with each imported passage.Source
- English translations in the Bang-e-Dara digital anthology excerpt — Recovered Urdu poetry anthology PDF excerpt; publication title and year are not established by the preserved source packet (bang-english.pdf, 105 PDF pages).Translation by V.G. Kiernan; Passages are individually credited in the recovered PDF as “Translated by V.G. Kiernan”; exact source and credit PDF page locators are stored with each imported passage.Source