انسان

Man

Nature has played a strange and wanton

joke—

Making man a seeker of secrets,

But hiding the secrets from his view!

The urge for knowledge gives him no rest,

But the secret of life remains undiscovered.

Wonder is at the beginning and the end—

What else is there in this house of mirrors?

The wave of the river glides along,

The river follows its course to the ocean,

The wind sweeps the clouds along,

Bearing them on its shoulders,

The stars are drunk with the wine of fate,

And lie chained in the sky’s prison;

The sun, a worshipper who gets up at dawn,

And calls out the message ‘Arise!’,

Is hiding in the western hills,

Drinking a cup of reddish wine.

All things delight in their very existence,

They are drunk with the wine of being.

But there is no one to drive away his

sorrow—

How bitter are the days of man!

Allama Muhammad Iqbal 

Translated by Mustansir Mir


(Picture: L'Homme aile ou l'Ange dechu, Odilon Redon)