ساقی نامہ
گراں گرچہ ہے صحبت آب و گلخوش آئی اسے محنت آب و گل
English translation
Unpleasant to it is the company of matter, but it likes to see its striving to improve itself.
Translated by M. Hadi Husain
About this couplet
This is couplet 46 of 99 in “ساقی نامہ” (The Cupbearer's Epistle) in the section Poems, from Allama Muhammad Iqbal's Urdu book Bal-e-Jibril (بالِ جبریل), published in 1935.
Read it in the poem۴۶ / ۹۹