I longed for your lips, dreamed of their roses: <br />I was hanged from the dry branch of the scaffold. <br />I wanted to touch your hands, their silver light: <br />I was murdered in the half-light of dim lanes. <br /> <br />And there where you were crucified, <br />so far away from my words, <br />you still were beautiful: <br />color kept clinging to your lips– <br />rapture was still vivid in your hair– <br />light remained silvering in your hands. <br /> <br />When the night of cruelty merged with the roads you had taked, <br />I came as far as my feet could bring me, <br />on my lips the phrase of a song, <br />my heart lit up only by sorrow. <br />This sorrow was my testimony to your beauty– <br />Look! I remained a witness till the end, <br />I who was killed in the darkest lanes. <br /> <br />It’s true– that not to reach you was fate– <br />but who’ll deny that to love you <br />was entirely in my hands? <br />So why complain if these matters of desire <br />brought me inevitably to the execution grounds? <br /> <br />Why complain? Holding up our sorrows as banners, <br />new lovers will emerge <br />from the lanes where we were killed <br />and embark, in caravans, on those highways of desire. <br />It’s because of them that we shortened the distances of sorrow, <br />it’s because of them that we went out to make the world our own, <br />we who were murdered in the darkest lanes. <br /> <br />English Translation By Agha Shahid Ali <br /> <br />Posted By Muhammad Atif Ch.<br /><br />Faiz Ahmed Faiz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-who-were-executed/
