کیا عشق ایک زندگی مستعار کا
کانٹا وہ دے کہ جس کی کھٹک لازوال ہویارب، وہ درد جس کی کسک لازوال ہو!
English translation
Give me a thorn whose sting never fades,
a pain whose ache is everlasting, my Lord.
Meaning: Don’t give me comfort that makes me forget You. Give me a restlessness that never dies, a longing that keeps me awake, a wound that keeps me moving towards You forever.
About this couplet
This is couplet 5 of 7 in “کیا عشق ایک زندگی مستعار کا” (Kya ishq ek zindagi-e-mustaar ka) in the section Odes Part-I, from Allama Muhammad Iqbal's Urdu book Bal-e-Jibril (بالِ جبریل), published in 1935.
Read it in the poem۵ / ۷