They Ask Me Why I Fade And Pine Poem by Khondoker Shajahan Raj

They ask me why I fade and pine,
And seem oppressed with woe?
They say what care now can be mine,
To cloud my youthful brow?

Alas! - they know not that I die
Of pains that none can heal,
Save those dear smiles and that blue eye
Who soon as Lethe's murmuring rill,
Can lull my woes' eternal sleep,
And make me cease to sigh and weep!

That cruel- that relentless maid,
Of heart more hard than stone,
Cares not, why thus I pine and fade,
And why oft thus I moan!

When fondly turn my ravished eyes
Of her sweet cheeks to gaze,
And life embittering frowns arise
And cloud that heavenly face!

O! thus abandoned to despair
I've naught but grief for me;
My life a wilderness appear
Overgrown with misery!

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