Mu'tamid's Lament In Prison
Allama Muhammad Iqbal 1877 (Sialkot, Punjab) – 1938 (Lahore, Punjab)
In my breast,
A wail of grief,
Without any spark or flash,
Alone survives,
Passionless, ineffectual.
A free man is in prison today,
Without a spear or a sword;
Regret overwhelms me
And also my strategy.
My heart
Is drawn by instinct to chains.
Perhaps my sword was of the same steel.
Once I had a two-edged sword-
It turned into the chains that shackle me now.
How whimsical and indifferent
Is the Author of fates.
[Translated by Mustansir Mir]
Note: Mu‘tamid was the king of Seville and an
Arabic poet. He was defeated and
imprisoned by a ruler of Spain. Mu‘tamid's
poems have been translated into English
and published in the Wisdom of the East
series.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 141 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXXAXXBCCXXXBXXX X XXAXXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 645 |
Words | 119 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 16, 1, 6 |
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