Merawam Khasta O Afsorda

Merawam Khasta O Afsorda — I Go Weary and Broken — is a departure song told from mid-departure: the speaker is already moving, already leaving, describing the conditions of the leave-taking as it happens. 'Toward the abode of my ruined dwelling' — the destination is no better than the origin. The speaker is not going somewhere good; they are going toward their own ruin.

'By God I was the bud of joy / The hand of love came and plucked me from the branch' — the bud of joy (ghonche-ye shadi) plucked before blooming is a common Persian image for potential destroyed. A bud plucked before it flowers will never flower; its possibility is also its ending. 'I became the flame of sighing — a hundred regrets / That my lips never reached that lip' — the sigh as flame is one of the older Persian metaphors: the breath that burns. The regret is specific: not the love in general but the kiss in particular that never happened.

'I go with laughter on my lips and a blood-filled heart' — this is the performance of departure: leaving with a smile while the heart bleeds. The concealment of grief behind composure is a recurring theme in Persian lyric; here it is named directly, the performance and the reality stated simultaneously. 'O vain and fruitless hope' — the final address to hope itself, asking to be released from it.