O Heart-Stealer Poem by Mohammad Younus

O heart stealer, such is the intensity of my love for you...
....that I have gone mad after you;
Though, in truth, very close to me are you,
...yet, in practice, a stranger you pose to be;

The nightingale is out to seek the roses...
...to give vent to his intense love for roses;
Eh! the roses are paled and withered!
Look, how with grief he is mourning for roses!

O my lover Majnun! Hiding in the forests of Najad,
Come on, your beloved Leila, fully adorned with ornaments...
...has come to the forest to meet you;

O Bombur (Bumble bee) ! I am your Yanbarzal (daffodil) !
I am waiting for you in the garden of flowers;
What are you looking for? Come on!
Look, how your locks of love have coiled round my neck

The moth and burning lamp when fall in love for each other,
Both burnt off themselves to be one through
annihilation;
To see their beloved the lovers one and all rushed to the spot of his exhibition
None of the lovers but could see his beloved until
His delusion was removed and found there exists not his other

O enraptured lover Shams, you have narrated the story of your love, (which says)
He is himself the lover, and himself his beloved he is.


Gazal of a great Kashmiri Sufi Poet, Shamas Faqir
(Translation by Mohammad Younus Koul)