How Soon After Enchanting Me You Left, O Wizard Poem by Ghulam Ahmad Mahjoor

How soon after enchanting me you left, O wizard !
Life's springtime, O my youth !

How like midsummer was my youth,
Tempting the world with lifted veil !
But alas, the blossoms remained for a day !

Like a cedar in the forest, enjoying
The river bank's pubescent green.
Cut it not down, O stern woodman !

Like a blazing pinewood fire,
Showering sparks with tongues of flame.
Spent is its force, the fire is out !

Alas ! it was only a dream so sweet,
That my grief was great when it was gone.
O could I dream that dream again !

A sweet-throated bird in the garden,
Singing perched on a flowering bough !
Don't aim your arrow, O king of hunters !

A garden aflame with the bright red colour
Of the blossoms of pomegranates !
But the autumn wind destroyed the bloom.

Like the hurrying waters of Rambi stream,
Which rush down but can't turn back,
Though the grass on the banks may wither!

I stand forsaken by the Lord of Youth,
And soot has covered my jessamine frame.
My eyes starve to see him again.

I am the forlorn Zuleika on the road,
My love, Yusuf's footfall awaiting.
I yearn to meet him once again.

Sweet boyhood and mad youth gone for ever,
Mahjoor remembers his earliest friend.
Do not desert me, O friend of my youth

[Translated by: Triloki Nath Raina]