خودی کی زندگی
نہنگ زندہ ہے اپنے محیط میں آزادنہنگ مردہ کو موج سراب بھی زنجیر
English translation
A crocodile that is full or verve in its own suburbs is quite free if dead, e'en billows or mirage for it, like chains and fetters be.
Translated by Syed Akbar Ali Shah
About this couplet
This is couplet 3 of 3 in “خودی کی زندگی” (The Life Of Selfhood) in the section Education and Upbringing, from Allama Muhammad Iqbal's Urdu book Zarb-e-Kalim (ضربِ کلیم), published in 1936.
Read it in the poem۳ / ۳