زندگی انساں کی اک دم کے سوا کچھ بھی نہیں
زندگی انساں کی اک دم کے سوا کچھ بھی نہیںدم ہوا کی موج ہے، رم کے سوا کچھ بھی نہیں
English translation
The life of Man is no more than a breath! Breath is a wave of air; it is no more than a flow!
(Apparently human life is no more than a breath. However, breath is a wave of air, and like all waves is constantly flowing. It is alive only as long as it is flowing. In the same way human life, which this wave sustains, is worth its existence only as long as it is active.)
Translated by Dr M.A.K. Khalil
Word meanings
رم: بھاگنا، چلنا۔
About this couplet
This is couplet 1 of 4 in “زندگی انساں کی اک دم کے سوا کچھ بھی نہیں” (Zindagi insaan ki ek dam ke siwa kuch bhi nahin) in the section The Ghazals 2, from Allama Muhammad Iqbal's Urdu book Bang-e-Dara (بانگِ درا), published in 1924.
Read it in the poem۱ / ۴