70. Ode to the Overseas Pakistanis
By JH Sayyar
1
O argent-hearted souls, whose fates have flown,
Beyond the Indus, past the saffron dawn,
To cities crowned with marble, steel, and stone,
Where alien rivers through strange gardens run
Yet in thy dreams, the mango’s amber hue,
The koel’s cry, still softly summon you.
2
In lands where Bacchus pours his foaming cheer,
And Ceres heaps her granaries to the brim,
Forget not Sialkot’s furrows, Lahore’s air,
Nor how the moon on Multan’s domes grows dim;
For there, thy mother counts each sunset’s flame,
And calls thy childhood by its secret name
3
Spare, O you pilgrims of the merchant star,
Some golden drops from Fortune’s brimming urn,
That hungry lips in homeland, near though far,
May taste the bread for which their pulses yearn;
And children’s eyes, like jasper fresh with rain,
May never mirror famine’s ghostly pain
4
Think how the Chanab’ sister-streams still keep
Thy cradle’s whispers in their murmuring roll;
Think how the roses in thy father’s sleep
Still breathe the prayer to heal thy roving soul
And let thy silver, like the moon’s pure light,
Flow homeward through the jasmine-scented night.
5
O blesses the soil that gave thy soul its root;
Return, in coin, the milk thy lips once knew;
So shall thy name, in temple song and flute,
Be sung when time is old, yet love is new
Till thou, like Keats beneath the Grecian sky,
Art dust, but star to those who still rely.
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