Gone is away the day and warm
And there is ecstasy and your charm
As your silvery beams stir my passion
I feel awed ah the sublime sensation
You have been there from the dawn of time
And in many a great poets rhyme
There with you for the night’s stay
I spend with you after the long day
How lovely you are how sweet your face
Together with the grace there at ace
O’er the black your silent creep
Strikes the strings in my heart and deep
The shining pearl set in carved jet
With a million dots weaving a net
The floating clouds make me more mellow
As across the black but quiet they row
With your silver etched on their flanks
As though in return saying thanks
Playing with you hide and seek
Like children fair innocent and meek
I too am lost in your silent play
I wish there for ever you stay
Oh but the night when you aren’t there
Some melancholy seems spread everywhere
Again those million stars but are
Sad and alone from you being far
Though the sun in the morn comes to rescue
The lone long nights thoughts pursue
You remember yours and mine first tryst
When I was a kid and there was mist
And again and again our rendezvous
You come to meet for you are true
A friend in this subtle solitude
Unlike the world rough and rude
This secret tryst you never delay
Since first we met and till this day
Unlike men’s youth you wax and wane
Which first comes, then gives way to pain
We men are young but once in life
And the youth is cut short by the time’s knife
But you like phoenix just come and go
The secret of eternity you seem you know
From my garden comes a sweet breeze
Along with your silver sets minds at ease
And the rustle of ivy leaves
And buffets come as though some one heaves
Comes the crickets sonorous chirp
And bats are busy in their haphazard trip
The flowers in breeze their heads sway
As though to each other they some thing say
Perhaps whispering about your grand grace
As you come o’er Wullar to see your face
As you peep from east the roses blush
And to watch you all night creatures rush
And there on the silent shores of the Dal
As a heavenly pearl gleams the Hazratbal
That crystal rim round your fair face
Glittering as a diamond lending you grace
Of which sailors say ‘tis ill fate
But ‘tis the crown that makes you great
Like a princess for wedding who is adorned
With a youthful king lately enthroned
A pearl in the white shell on the shores of some bay
That with its brilliance makes night a day
That arouses in lovers wild songs of passion
To experience bliss in an amourous sensation
The taste of love intoxicating as wine
Burning and hot as the torches of pine
I but with you search my solace
With you the rendezvous I fail to miss
There you are innocent children’s
Who gaze at you and cry in glee
But remember the face that I’d love
Till loves last limit but here I am now
Sheathed in solitude and you are my friend
Now the broken dreams never seem to mend
The pieces of whom I hide nor display
The lone lovers like me till late night stay
Watching you though in grief indeed
Perhaps some ruffian too of some ill breed
Though with little feelings in his heart
And someone poor smitten by Cupid’s dart
Stares at you for his love’s at sale
And still he loves without fail
With a wonder sheen when you shine
O’er the marble dream Taj, the lovers shrine
Glows and shows what power has love
That surpasses time and shows men how
Love endures and lives on with time
And the heartless people call this a crime
Oh ! Artemis there you watch like a fay
The lovers the sepulcher wherein they lay
Some poor lover too in moor or mead
Playing doleful notes from a hand made reed
Whose melancholy cadence till far does ring
Defining sweet pain of loves sting
And your silver lends him little solace
For he is yearning for his beloved’s kiss
Of Endymion does this make you think
For you too loved till loves last brink
Me thinks what at all love does hold
Bringing misery and woes all untold
But true love ah! Is but a blessing
Only unlucky escape its sting
The ailing hearts then never go astray
The way you make night look like day
Love too brightens the heart and soul
This love plays a melodramatic role
Joy and glee and in it I see
Some sort of some divine melancholy
Does all this joy and all this pain
With the end of man go in vain
From high in heaven do you see the streets
Where helplessness and agony life meets
Where people sleep without a bread
Their poor young ones without a thread
See our world where the mighty few
And the countless helpless live
Oh! Hear Artemis! what I do say
Here weak ones the powerful slay
And heartlessly flows the poor’s blood
As unchecked goes the crimson flood
I too like you but silently see
For my heart all this cant dree
And in some fear my heart throbs
And all the life’s joys this fear robs
So sweet of you how kind you are
To me too near even being so far
Of you I found in Eiliot’s study
‘La lune ne garde aucene rancune’
You shine every where plains and brooks
And unbiased on honests and crooks
The night you shine my fears allay
The fears that innocent hearts slay
Amidst far away sung some rhapsody
And of your beams the unstrung melody
Touches the passions deep and down
And lights up faces the faces that frown
In deep valleys play light and shade
And among grave stones where dead are laid
Where ghosts seem to wander but quiet
Lest some poor living one has a fright
On distant moors play light and shade
As breeze sweeps across the glade
And sparkles the cool of the stream
Like million diamonds one sees in a dream
But all this feasts uncared lay
Some one like me all would pay
Your grace and all this never to lose
But unpaid the lone hearts you amuse
And all those who are all life recluse
And to you of reverence who pay the dues
Ah look into the east again the day is born
Adieu Artemis for now comes the morn.
