If Mir weeps with such a clamour: a ghazal by Mir Taqi Mir

Mir Taqi Mir‘s ghazal.

Ghazal

If Mir keeps weeping with such a clamourHow will the neighbour ever sleep?

I am one who weeps, and I leave this worldFor whom the cloud will weep every year

Weeping is often my business, preacherHow long will you keep washing my face?

Enough, O weeping, are your eyes not enough?How long will you keep drowning the world?

My heart has made such a lamentThat even the caravan bell will lose its senses

So go on, hurl abuse at strangers as you pleaseIf he says anything to us, it will happen

Enough, Mir, wipe your tears from your lashesHow long will you keep stringing these pearls?

Difficult words

• Shor: here, the loud sound of weeping
• Hamsaya: neighbour
• Abr: cloud
• Nasih: one who gives advice
• Girya: weeping
• Nala: lament
• Jaras: caravan bell
• Mizhgan: eyelashes
• Prota: threading pearls on a string

Background

Mir’s name appears in both the opening couplet and the closing couplet of this ghazal. The whole ghazal is about weeping: the neighbour’s sleep, the cloud that rains every year, the stringing of pearls from the eyelashes. In the second couplet, “I am one who weeps, and I leave this worldFor whom the cloud will weep every year”, the poet says that after he is gone the cloud will weep for him every year. Ahmad Mehfooz’s recitation of this ghazal is available on Rekhta¹.

Source of text: Text published on Rekhta, word for word¹.