Love brings the tiny sweat into your hair
Like stars marching in the dead of night.
From the Hindustani of Mir Taqui (eighteenth century).
INCURABLE
I desire the door-sill of my beloved
More than a king's house;
I desire the shadow of the wall where her beauty hides
More than the Delhi palaces.
Why did you wait till spring;
Were not my hands already full of red-thorned roses?