Farewell O World's Congregation (Adapted from Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Farewell O worldly companions! I am going to my homeland I am feeling unhappy in this well-populated wilderness

I am very much dejected, unsuitable for assemblies I am Neither you are suitable for me nor suitable for you I am

The king’s audience and the minister’s bedchamber each is a prison The golden chain’s prisoner will break himself free from this prison

Though much pleasure is in embellishing your assembly But some kind of strangeness is in your acquaintance

I remained long in company of your self-centered people I remain restless for long like the waves of the ocean

I remained long in your luxury gatherings I remained long searching for light in the darkness

I searched long for the rose’ sight among thorns Ah! I have not found that Yusuf in your market place

The perplexed eye for another scene is searching As storm-stricken my eye for coast is searching

Leaving your garden like fragrance I am going Farewell! O worldly company I am going to the homeland

I have made my home in the quietness of the mountain side Ah! I do not get this pleasure in conversation’s music!

Associate of Nargis-i-Shahlah, and rose’s companion I am The garden is my homeland, nightingale’s associate I am

The sound of the spring’s music lulls me to sleep The morning cuckoo from the green carpet wakes me up

Everyone in the world assemblage social life likes The poet’s heart but the solitude’s corner likes

I am verged on lunacy by being perturbed in habitations For whom I am searching, roaming in the mountain valleys?

Whose love makes me roam in the meadows? And makes me sleep on the spring’s banks?

You taunt me that fond of the corner of retirement I am Look O imprudent one! Messenger of Nature’s assembly I am

Compatriot of the elms, turtle-dove’s confidante I am! In this garden’s silence in the state of anxiety I am!

If I do hear something it is only to tell others If I do see something it is only to show others

My heart is a lover of retirement, proud of my home I am Scoffing at the thrones of Dara and Sikandar I am

How enchanting is the act of lying under the trees As now and then my sight falls at the evening star

Where in the strange house of learning can this be seen! The secret of universe can only in the rose-petal be seen