The Heart and Soul of Iqbal

The Flower

O flower! Why show solicitude for the nightingale’s wounded heart, Let the tears of your dress be darned first

If you long for respect in the this garden of life, Let your life be led entangled in the thorns

Se the Juniper in the garden; it is free and yet chained to the soil, A freedom bound by constrains is the one you should acquire

You will only shame your contentment with your miserliness, The drops as of dew should not be enough, empty the whole ewer and the cup.

It does not befit your dignity that you are picked from the garden to be placed on somebody’s turban or grace someone’s neck

The dew in the garden said this to the flowering bud, If you have the courage to taste the plucker’s tyranny, you first ought to have the color and the fragrance in you.

If you want to remain unaffected by the decay of the autumn, You should cut off the desire for the glittering

Look and see that the perfection of your life lies in you become adorning beauty if the robe of someone with a heart