S. R. Faruqi:

This ghazal ought to have been in the refrain of h , because [the ghazal has no refrain and] both rhymes of the opening-verse end in h . Apart from only one verse (which has not come into the selection), the rhymes of all the verses are Persian. and end in h . But since we're forced to seize the h and bend it toward aa , the Fort William editors wrote the rhymes with aa and put this ghazal into the refrain aa . And everyone afterwards followed their lead. In my view, this is incorrect. But I didn't want to introduce a disruption into the sequence; thus I've given this ghazal a place in the refrain aa , but I've written [in SSA] the rhymes with h instead of aa . See {60,1}.

In the present verse, the wine-house's smelling of flower-like wine is very fine. The meaning of flower-like wine can be both that in the wine would be a flower-like scent, and that the wine would be delicate like a flower. Then, he hasn't simply praised the wine, but has also established the excellence of the wine-house through its flower-like scent. In addition, the longing is of a very innocent kind: that in the hand would be a brimming glass, and death would come; it might not be vouchsafed that the wine would be drunk, but that he would reach that wine-house and die-- that would be a great deal.

It's also fine that usually people like to die in some traditionally auspicious place, and here a wish is being expressed to die, glass in hand, in a wine-scented wine-house. There's also an aspect of temperament in it, As Shafiq ur-Rahman has somewhere written, 'Now the longing is only this much: that I would spend the rest of my life in London or Paris, absorbed in remembering the Lord'.

In 'flower' there's an additional pleasure, that the best kind of Indian wine is also called 'Flower'. When under the influence of English the rank of Indian things declined, this name too was forgotten by us. Otherwise, up to the time of the :tilism-e hoshrubaa [in the 1880's] 'flower' was often used for wine.

[See also {1750,4}.]

FWP:

SETS == MUSHAIRAH
MOTIFS == WINE; WINE-HOUSE
NAMES
TERMS == RHYME

Like a good mushairah-verse, this one has a teaser of a first line-- what is the 'in it' where the speaker, brimming glass in hand, wants to die? Not only do we have to wait (as long as is conveniently possible) to hear the second line-- but even then, at the cost of some convolutedness the second line withholds its 'punch' as long as it possibly can, so that the answer to the question forms the last word in the whole verse (since this ghazal has no refrain).

There's one more bit of nice word/meaning play, in the piquant interplay between 'to die' and 'medicine'. The word daaruu , literally 'medicine', is often used for wine. If someone takes 'medicine' and then dies, then either the 'medicine' didn't work (a possibility ruled out by the wish to die in the first line), or the 'medicine' was intended to bring about death in the first place. Now we're deep into mystical territory.