O’ Anarkali!
What were you thinking when the high walls were going up;
and your stout heart filled with love, became a broken cup?
Darkness – rising and swallowing whole, the light of all love,
the dream – crushed and wounded, a whimpering white dove
#English #poetry #poem #Anarkali #Lahore #love #loss #tragedy #life #death #prince #king
Were you thinking of your noble sacrifice on the high altar;
becoming a true legend, and your feet didn’t even falter?
It was a forfeit true, but made at the highest of all prices;
it was never treasured, being counted amongst your vices
Were you thinking of your broken life and your sad dreams;
your parched throat, filled with millions of silent screams?
Love was never yours in the first place, never yours to cherish;
yours was a beautiful life indeed, but doomed to finally perish
Or were you thinking of death, an unimaginable possibility;
and death, which though romanced, it brings along obscurity?
Your life was so marvellous, but it was marked by fragility;
you were true but in your intentions, they found an impurity
O’ Anarkali!
Did you hear them pass orders – to hurry and to hasten?
Did you count them – each stroke of the master mason?
Perhaps you sealed your ears and shut your eyes in despair;
forgetting your tears, gulping at the rapidly vanishing air
Did you think of the Prince’s embrace and his lips on yours?
Or the old Emperor’s cold cruelty, which closed all doors?
Perhaps you were rendered silent and helpless by fate;
she always guards it, the fulfilment of desires, the high gate
O’ Anarkali!
There you are at rest, lying silently in your cold marble grave;
oblivious to love or loss, but still remembered as the brave
Here I am, reflecting on your life and how you met your end;
I know what is love and I know what is loss, that I just pretend
