Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action –
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, ‘The night is starry
And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes?

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
And these the last verses that I write for her.

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

bol ki lab āzād haiñ tere

lab=lips

bol zabāñ ab tak terī hai

terā sutvāñ jism hai terā

sutvāñ=straight

bol ki jaañ ab tak terī hai

dekh ki āhan-gar kī dukāñ meñ

āhan-gar=ironsmith

tund haiñ sho.ale surḳh hai aahan

tund=fast/rapid, sho.ale=burning coal, surḳh=red, aahan=iron

khulne lage qufloñ ke dahāne

qufloñ=locks, dahāne=mouth

phailā har ik zanjīr kā dāman

zanjīr=chain/shackles, dāman=border

bol ye thoḌā vaqt bahut hai

jism o zabāñ kī maut se pahle

bol ki sach zinda hai ab tak

bol jo kuchh kahnā hai kah le

ye na thī hamārī qismat ki visāl-e-yār hotā

agar aur jiite rahte yahī intizār hotā

visāl-e-yār=meeting with lover

tire va.ade par jiye ham to ye jaan jhuuT jaanā

ki ḳhushī se mar na jaate agar e'tibār hotā

tirī nāzukī se jaanā ki bañdhā thā ahd bodā

kabhī tū na toḌ saktā agar ustuvār hotā

bañdhā=tie, bodā=delicate, ustuvār=strong

koī mere dil se pūchhe tire tīr-e-nīm-kash ko

ye ḳhalish kahāñ se hotī jo jigar ke paar hotā

tīr-e-nīm-kash=half drawn arrow, khalish=unease, jigar=heart

ye kahāñ kī dostī hai ki bane haiñ dost nāseh

koī chārasāz hotā koī ġham-gusār hotā

nāseh=advisor, ġham-gusār=comforter

rag-e-sañg se Tapaktā vo lahū ki phir na thamtā

jise ġham samajh rahe ho ye agar sharār hotā

rag-e-sañg=vein of stone, lahū =blood, sharār =spark

ġham agarche jāñ-gusil hai pa kahāñ bacheñ ki dil hai

ġham-e-ishq gar na hotā ġham-e-rozgār hotā

jāñ-gusil=heart breaking, bacheñ=escape, ġham-e-rozgār=sorrow of sustenance 

kahūñ kis se maiñ ki kyā hai shab-e-ġham burī balā hai

mujhe kyā burā thā marnā agar ek baar hotā

shab-e-ġham= night of sorrow

hue mar ke ham jo rusvā hue kyuuñ na ġharq-e-dariyā

na kabhī janāza uThtā na kahīñ mazār hotā

rusvā= disgrace, ġharq-e-dariyā= drown in the river, janāza= funeral, mazār= shrine

use kaun dekh saktā ki yagāna hai vo yaktā

jo duī kī bū bhī hotī to kahīñ do-chār hotā

yagāna=unique

ye masā.il-e-tasavvuf ye tirā bayān 'ġhālib'

tujhe ham valī samajhte jo na bāda-ḳhvār hotā

masā.il-e-tasavvuf= problems of mysticism/sufism, valī=saint, bāda-ḳhvār=drinker

        All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

From: As you Like It
Act II
Scene VII

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

You did not come,

And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,—

Yet less for loss of your dear presence there

Than that I thus found lacking in your make

That high compassion which can overbear

Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake

Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,

You did not come.

You love not me,

And love alone can lend you loyalty;

–I know and knew it. But, unto the store

Of human deeds divine in all but name,

Was it not worth a little hour or more

To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came

To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be

You love not me?