Beauty of Kashmir
By:  Dr. Maqsood Jafri

*The snow clad mountains buttressed with heavenly beauty,
Add awe to the flowing streams glittering like precious pearls.
The odor of the saffron fields maddens the lover of loyalty.
And see how swiftly the surging billow with ecstasy swirls.

* Unparallelled human beauty bewitches and dazzles the eyes.
Speedier than speed light is the mercurial flow of silvery streams.
The cooing of Cuckoo has been turned in to plaintive cries.
The predators have ravished the elf and shattered her dreams.

*Apple leaves on golden boughs are prettier than the shining stars.
An atom of dust of my wailing valley excels in beauty than the Moon.
No autumn is found here; the branches spring like golden bars.
Ever fresh is the clime of my dale; its' eve, its' morn and its' noon.

* But alas; the elf of beauty is in the clutches of ghostly ill fate.
The dagger of the demon has severed its' soft  rose like roots.
The strenuous struggle of freedom you can never under estimate.
Can you trample our struggle or smash it under the boots?