Who is this, who comes into my longing carrying a goblet, Casting shadows of a moonlight night across my heart?

When the vine of memory drips all night in the heart, Carrying in their gaze, spring’s morning and evening - who is this?

The breeze’s fragrant caresses kept waking him all night, Carrying on its lips the essence of someone’ name – who is this?

The scent of a thought and the fragrance of a body, Which stand at my body’s door with a message – who is this?

In the distance, someone was playing a shehani. And I woke to Find in my eyes a perfected dream of someone – who is this?

Note: This is my translation from the Urdu of Makhdoom Mohiuddin's "Ye kaun aata hai tanhaiyon mein". I just happened to stumble upon Makhdoom's body of work and (think of a Hyderabadi Faiz Ahmed Faiz or a Nazim Hikmet, with the same aesthetic of revolutionary romanticism - why didn't I know of him!!) last night, as I was searching for movies of Irrfan Khan. Irrfan Kan played Makhdoom in an Indian TV series on Urdu poets called Kahkashan (created by Ali Sardar Jafri) - which I plan to watch in full before my Indian sojourn is over.