Naveed Khalid Poems

O ye hear not what the stars in secret influence comment,
Nor read this line that counting more by nights and days,
Behind the curtain of sun's eye, too, shall fade away in waking hour;
And by equal measure apart from each to each stands still,
...

Not you, my love, by waking hours
had ever lived this day by night;
but I alone in cruel hands of time
when full many a star at thy feet,
...

My love of sluggish times more to my reckoning days,
Erased of all forms, such darkling insights to bewail the night,
That unnerved blood in vein, of ages that are dead;
Perhaps in solace of compounded clay my haggard bones,
...

Oft am I swayed by this gentle breeze,
That in the mellowing year of spring
Too soon shall fade to some rivulet blue,
Full ripe gourd of some hazel nuts in my account,
...

All that lives in the mind, love, lives not in vain,
Nor this sickness to the bones in death-like trance,
And in decrepit tongue to commune with men of old;
The days that are gone, bereaved of light in infernal grave,
...

Me all too weird of what I write to my eyes so blind,
of stumbled feet her untread dream by the sea ashore,
that e'ery groaning heart but feeds on love
of beauty's prima facie in my aforesaid rhyme;
...

Thus, I so spake that in my retiring room
e'ery looking glass that shows not half thy part,
of untamed heart's forfeited first in winter cold
to that day of unaltered eye I still behold
...

O horrible, horrible awhile but to think on thee,
Of e'ery wanton look to morning's pure serene,
That in worn-out time to precious minutes waste;
I still hold dear with what I least contend,
...

(Inspired by William Blake's painting:
The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun)

O ye tell me not in mournful numbers of world forlorn,
...

No thought so insidious that in grey matter of the mind,
of unhindered scope this world beside
to eternal bliss at midnight lease in waking hour;
I still behold in false pretense to vague impressions
...