Of the many languages of India, Urdu (Hindustani) is the most widely known, especially in Upper India. Both as a written and a spoken language it has a reputation throughout Asia for elegance and expressiveness. Until the time of Muhammad Shah, Indian poetry was written in Persian. But that monarch, who mounted the throne of Delhi in 1719, greatly desired to make Urdu the vogue, and under his patronage and approval, Hatim, one of his ministers, and Wali of the Deccan, wrote Diwans in Urdu. This patronage of poets was continued by his successors, and exists indeed to the present day; and the cultivation of Urdu poetry has always been encouraged at the many Courts of India. Some of the Indian Rulers are themselves poets, and find their duty and pleasure in rewarding with gifts and pensions the literary men whose works they admire. The Court of Hyderabad has for long had a circle of poets: the late Nizam was himself eminent as a writer of verse. The Maharaja-Gaekwar of Baroda is a generous patron of literary men, and the present Rulers of lesser States such as Patiala, Nabha, Tonk, and Rampur, are deeply interested in the cultivation of poetry in their Dominions.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many towns in India had extensive and flourishing literary coteries, and it is from the poets Of that period that this handful of verses is gathered. The Mushaira - a poetical concourse, wherein rival poets meet to try their skill in a tournament of verse - is still an institution in India. Delhi, Agra, Lucknow, Lahore, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Benares, Calcutta, and Hyderabad, have all been, and some still are, nests of singing birds. Of the extent of Urdu literature some idea may be gained from the fact that a History of it written about 1870 gives the names of some three thousand authors, and that Tazkiras or anthologies containing selections from many poets are very numerous.
The poetry is very varied and of great interest. It includes moral verses and counsels, sometimes in intermingled verse and prose; heroic poems telling the old tales of the loves of Khusru and Shirin, of Yusuf and Zuleika, of Majnun and Leila, and the romances of chivalry; elegies on the deaths of Hasan and Hussein, and of various monarchs; devotional poems in praise of Muhammad and the Imams; eulogies of the reigning Ruler or other patron or protector of the poor; satires upon men and institutions, sometimes upon Nature herself, specially upon such phenomena as heat, cold, inundations and pestilence; descriptive verse relating to the seasons and the months, the flowers and the trees. Above all there is a great wealth of love poetry, both secular and mystic, where, in impassioned ghazals or odes, the union of man with God is celebrated under various allegories, as the bee and the lotus, the nightingale and the rose, the moth and the flame.
ASIF
I
Of no use is my pain to her nor me:
For what disease is love the remedy?
My heart that may not to her love attain
Is humble, and would even crave disdain.
O traitrous heart that my destruction sought
And me to ruin and disaster brought !
As, when the chain of life is snapt in twain,
Never shall it be linked, so ne'er again
My utterly broken heart shall be made whole.
I cannot tear the Loved One from my soul,
Nor can I leave my heart that clings to her.
O Asif, am I not Love's minister !
Who has such courage in Love's ways to dare !
What heart like mine such bitterness can bear !
II
The eyes of the narcissus win new light
From gleams that in Thy rapturous eyes they trace,
The flame is but a moth with fluttering flight
Drawn by the lovelier lustre of Thy face.
This shifting House of Mirrors where we dwell
Under Thy charm a fairy palace seems:
Who hath not fallen tangled in Thy spell
Beguiled by visions, wandering in dreams !
The hearts of all Thy captive lovers stray
Hither and thither driven by whims of Thine,
Sometimes within the Kaaba courts to pray,
Sometimes to worship at the Idols' Shrine.
O Asif, thou hast known such grief and shame,
Shrinking beneath the cruel scourge of Love,
That all the earth will hail thee with acclaim
As most courageous of the sons thereof.
III
When shall the mocking world withhold its blame,
When shall men cease to darken thus my name,
Calling the love which is my pride, my shame !
O Judge, let me my condemnation see;
Whose names are written on my death decree ?
The names of all who have been friends to me.
What hope to reach the Well-Belovéd's door,
The dear lost dwelling that I knew of yore;
I stumbled once; I can return no more.
The joy of love no heart can feel alone,
The fire of love at first unseen, unknown,
In flames of love from either side is blown.
O Asif, tread thy pathway carefully
Across this difficult world; for, canst thou see,
A further journey is awaiting thee.
IV
I ask that God in justice punish me
With death, if my love waver or grow less;
Faithful am I indeed
How can you comprehend such faithfulness ?
To you alone I offer up my heart,
To any other what have I to give ?
No light demand I make,
What answer will you grant that I may live ?
If on the last dread Day of Reckoning
I think of you, and in my heart there shine
The beauty of your face,
God's Beatific Vision shall be mine.
Once I had friends, now none are left to me;
I see none else but you, because my heart
Has wholly fled to you,
And thus I walk the ways of Earth apart.
I, Asif, am the chief of sinners held,
This dark dishonour will I not deny,
But glory in my shame;
Where is another sinner such as I ?
ASIF: pen-name of Asaf Jah VI Sir Mir Mahboob Ali Khan Siddiqi Bayafandi ( 1866 – 1911) was the 6th Nizam of Hyderabad. He ruled Hyderabad state, one of the Princely states in India between 1869 and 1911. He was an esteemed poet, and patron of poets.
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