I dare not say my heart is hers though she stole it from me.
I cannot call her tyrant though I see her cruelty.
Hers is the battleground where men bear neither blade nor bow
Hers is the banquet-hall with neither wine nor revelry.
Your courage will not help you here, the lightning flame bolts fast.
Die as the moth afire. No living being can you be.
We journey in love's heat and seek not water nor the shade
So do not speak of Kausar's running stream nor Tuba's tree.
Life's tribulation ends, so why complain of tyranny?
You suffer, and it is God's will. Let pain that will be, be.
The word held secret in my breast cannot be preached. I'll speak it
Not from the pulpit but from high upon the gallows-tree.
O strange it feels to deal with one so singularly mad.
For Ghalib's love is not Islam, nor infidelity.