Love: Perfect Beauty Poem by Muhammad Shanazar

He says, “What quality of mine you like the most?
I neither have the complexion so bright,
Nor form and features worth-referring,
Nor lips well shaped,
Nor eyes like a deer’s”.

Convey to him, “My beloved one,
Love is perfect beauty,
Human being just adore idols,
They portray the portraits,
That who sculptures well the idol,
It becomes their god”.

The sculptors cannot go beyond
Precious stone, lips made of rubies,
Arcs and curves,
Tallness and bulk with beauty,
They neither can infuse frantic warmth in the eyes,
Nor delicacy of love in the lips,
Nor softness of the arms,
Nor a rhythm of the pulsations,
Nor the magic of touch is given any priority,
Nor flutters of the eyelashes,
Nor flows on the cheeks water of the tears,
They make just statutes of stones,
With the heads resembling human beings.

Convey to him, “My beloved one,
Had my hearing been frozen
How my cheeks would have blushed
On your gutsy comments,
And how the dreams of union
In the eyes would have settled”.

Love is not an urge to adore a fine-looking idol,
Else the pivot of loyalty would have been
The house of Aazar,
But it did not happen so, but it did not happen so.

Love is a paras whom it touches,
Transforms into gold,
Love is such a powerful thought as when
It gets utterance through the tongue,
It transforms itself into a concrete shape.

O! My beloved one,
It is not a bargain of loss if I sacrifice my stars
On the glowworms of your desires,
And if I lose my heart just on the gesture
Of your lashes, I shall lose nothing,
The discourse you utter,
Is not less than the divine scriptures to me,
O! My beloved, I just have to say to you,
Whether love is a spell or spell remover,
I know nothing except that
Love itself is perfect beauty.


Written by Shazia Akbar
Translated by Muhammad Shanazar