To My Son Abbas Poem by Khurshid Banu Natavan

Parted with you, I burn night and day,
Like a thoughtless moth in a candleflame.
Like a rose you were destined to fade and die;
Like a nightingale mourning its rose sing I.
My heart aches with longing to see you, my star,
I roam like Majnun in search of Leili.
\I whisper your name, for your presence I sigh,
Like a grief-stricken dove on a bough sing I.
Like Farhad from the source of my happiness banned,
At the foot of the mountain of parting I stand.
Your name all these days I have chanted and sung
Like a parrot with sug-ar under its tongue.
Haunted with sorrow, all day I wander;
Burning with grief like a Salamander.
My heart, that once soared in a heaven of love,
Broke its wings and was dashed to the earth from above.
Blind to the light of the sun and the moon,
Like a moon eclipsed, I am shrouded in gloom.
Through my tears your image I always see,
You dried up so soon, o my cypress-tree!
Oh, would I were blind not to see you dead.
The sun now scorches the earth, your last bed.
My hopes were frustrated; you left me and died,
I did not live to see you join your bride.
Your brown eyes expectantly looked at me;
Was it only that mine your shrine should be?
I weep tears of blood, to sunlight I'm blind,
As a lost soul I wander, Abbas, my child.
The anguish of losing you gnaws at my breast,
Tears flow from my eyes without respite or rest.