It is the last Wednesday of Safar, come!
Let's place a tub full of fragrant wine in the garden.
Whoever comes, drinks a full cup and gets intoxicated,
Tramples the greenery and jumps over the flowers.
Ghalib, what is this description, other than praise for the king?
No writing or reading pleases me now.
Rings of gold and silver are distributed in his presence,
Before which silver and gold, sun and moon, lose their luster.
Consider them as hollowed out from the middle,
Millions of suns and countless moons.
This Urdu poem by Ghalib initially sets a scene of hedonistic revelry for the last Wednesday of Safar, a date often associated with specific cultural observances in South Asia. However, the poet swiftly pivots, declaring that his true artistic inclination lies in praising the king. He then employs characteristic hyperbole, portraying the monarch's boundless generosity as so profound that the distributed gold and silver outshine the sun and moon, rendering them dim and countless, hollowed-out luminaries.
wit & rebuke · defiance · wonder & existence