Gar Chi Chashme Tu

'Although your eye is still hunting for hearts / My waiting eye is still drowned in longing' — the contrast between the beloved's active hunting (shikaar) and the speaker's passive drowning (gharq) establishes the asymmetry of the relationship. She moves through the world gathering hearts; he remains stationary in his waiting.

'I have put a smile on my lips to come near you / By God, my chest is still full of the longing of grief' — the oath 'by God' (ba khuda) is typically a marker of sincerity in Persian speech. What follows it is the truth hidden behind the social smile. The smile is strategy (to come near); what is inside is the opposite of what the face displays.

'Although every day you promised me tomorrow / My heart is still full of the hope of that tomorrow's promise' — the eternal tomorrow (farda) of the beloved's promise is one of the ghazal tradition's most persistent ironies. The tomorrow that was promised every day becomes the heart's content: not the arrival of what was promised, but the hope itself. The heart is full of hope for something that never comes, which is perhaps a way of staying alive.