Either late or soon or never. But here through the glass the face insists. Beside some natural flowers the flower itself appears in the form of colour, cheek, rose. Through the glass the rose is always a rose. But it has no scent. Distant youth is itself. But here it is not heard.

Only light passess through the virgin glass.

O tarde o pronto o nunca.

Pero ahí tras el cristal el rostro insiste. Junto a unas flores naturales la misma flor se muestra en forma de color, mejilla, rosa. Tras el cristal la rosa es siempre rosa. Pero no huele. La juventud distante es ella misma. Pero aquí no se oye.

Sólo la luz traspasa el cristal virgen.

Rostro tras el cristal (Mirada del viejo)

Just a few return from dust, disguised as roses. What hopes the earth forever covers, what faces?

I too could recall moonlit roofs, those nights of wine— But Time has shelved them now in Memory's dimmed places.

She has left forever, let blood flow from my eyes till my eyes are lamps lit for love's darkest places.

All is his—Sleep, Peace, Night—when on his arm your hair shines to make him the god whom nothing effaces.

With wine, the palm's lines, believe me, rush to Life's stream— Look, here's my hand, and here the red glass it raises.

See me! Beaten by sorrow, man is numbed to pain. Grief has become the pain only pain erases.

World, should Ghalib keep weeping you will see a flood drown your terraced cities, your marble palaces.