Analysis of The Himalayas

Allama Muhammad Iqbal 1877 (Sialkot, Punjab) – 1938 (Lahore, Punjab)



O Himalah! O rampart of the realm of India!
Bowing down, the sky kisses your forehead

Your condition does not show any signs of old age
You are young in the midst of day and night's alternation

The Kalâm of ñër Sân« witnessed but one Effulgence
For the discerning eye you are an embodiment of Effulgence

To the outward eye you are a mere mountain range
In reality you are our sentinel, you are India's rampart

You are the diwan whose opening verse is the sky
You lead Man to the solitudes of his heart's retreat

Snow has endowed you with the turban of honour
Which scoffs at the crown of the world-illuminating sun

Antiquity is but a moment of your bygone age
Dark clouds are encamped in your valleys

Your peaks are matching with the pleiades in elegance
Though you are standing on earth your abode is sky's expanse

The stream in your flank is a fast flowing mirror
For which the breeze is working like a kerchief

The mountain top's lightning has given a whip
In the hands of cloud for the ambling horse

O Himalah! Are you like a theater stage
Which nature's hand has made for its elements?

Ah! How the cloud is swaying in excessive joy
The cloud like an unchained elephant is speeding

Gentle movement of the morning zephyr is acting like a cradle
Every flower bud is swinging with intoxication of existence

The flower bud's silence with the petal's tongue is saying
'I have never experienced the jerk of the florist's hand

Silence itself is relating the tale of mine
The corner of nature's solitude is the abode of mine'

The brook is melodiously descending from the high land
Putting the waves of Kawthar and Tasnâm to embarrassment

As if showing the mirror to Nature's beauty
Now evading now rowing against the rock in its way

Play in passing this orchestra of beautiful music
O wayfarer! The heart comprehends your music

When the night's Lailah unfurls her long hair
The sound of water-falls allures the heart

That silence of the night whose beauty surpasses speech
That state of silent meditation overshadowing the trees

That dusk's beauty which shivers along the mountain range
Very beautiful looks this rouge on your cheeks

O Himalah! Do relate to us some stories of the time
When your valleys became abode of Man's ancestors

Relate something of the life without sophistication
Which had not been stained by the rouge of sophistication

O Imagination! Bring back that period
O Vicissitudes of Time speed backwards


Scheme AX BC DD EA XX FC BD DD FX XD BD XG XD GH II HX XX JJ FX XD ED XD CC XD
Poetic Form
Metre 11111011100 1010110110 1010111101111 1110011101100 011111110111 100101111010011 101011101101 0101110100111001 110111001101 11110111101 11011101011 1110110101001 0100110101111 111010110 1111010100100 11110111011101 010111011010 11011101010 01011011001 00111101001 1111101001 11011111100 110111000101 01111100110 10101010101101010 100101110100101010 0101101011110 11100100011011 100110100111 01011010100111 01110101011 10011101110100 111001011010 10101100101011 10101100110010 110101110 10111011 011101101 1101011100101 111100101010001 1110110010101 10100111111 1110111110101 111001011110 0110101010010 1111110110010 10010111100 1010011110
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 2,389
Words 427
Sentences 9
Stanzas 24
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2
Lines Amount 48
Letters per line (avg) 41
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 82
Words per stanza (avg) 18
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

2:12 min read
109

Allama Muhammad Iqbal

Muhammad Iqbal, known as Allama Iqbal, was a poet, philosopher, theorist, and barrister in British India. He is held as the national poet of Pakistan. He has been called the "Spiritual Father of Pakistan" for his contributions to the nation. Iqbal's poems, political contributions, and academic and scholarly research were distinguished. He inspired the Pakistan movement in Subcontinent and is considered a renowned figure of Urdu literature, although he wrote in both Urdu and Persian. Iqbal is admired as a prominent poet by Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians, Afghans, Bangladeshis and other international scholars of literature including the west. Though Iqbal is best known as a poet, he is also an acclaimed "Muslim philosophical thinker of modern times". His first poetry book, The Secrets of the Self, appeared in the Persian language in 1915, and other books of poetry include The Secrets of Selflessness, Message from the East and Persian Psalms. His best known Urdu works are The Call of the Marching Bell, Gabriel's Wing, The Rod of Moses and a part of Gift from Hijaz. Along with his Urdu and Persian poetry, his Urdu and English lectures and letters have been influential in cultural, social, religious and political discourses. In the 1922 New Year Honours, he was made a Knight Bachelor by King George V. While studying law and philosophy in England, Iqbal joined the London branch of the All-India Muslim League. During the League's December 1930 session, he delivered a speech, known as the Allahabad Address, in which he pushed for the creation of a Muslim state in north-west India. more…

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