S. R. Faruqi:

The image in the second line is so heart-shaking and full of meaning that its equal could hardly be found. Because ;xvaahish is feminine, it also brings to mind the custom in olden times of innocent girls being buried alive. (This custom was certainly there in ancient Arabia; in some regions of Hindustan too up until Mir's time-- or rather, after that too-- the custom existed.) For this practice the phrase ga;Rii hai is more forceful than dafn kii jaa rahii hai and so on. The vision of ;xvaahish as innocent, or (because it doesn't become fulfilled) as young, is also present. In short, in every way this line creates a hair-raising image.

We are of course acquainted with vaaqi((ah meaning 'death'; thus we can see that this word alludes not only to the speaker's death, but also to the young desire's being buried alive.

A [Persian] verse by Nisbati Thanesari is somewhat close to Mir's theme, but Nisbati's verse lacks Mir's 'mood' and dramaticness:

'Put me underground somewhere separate from my heart,
For in the same grave as that oppressed one, it's impossible to sleep.'

Similarly, Amir Mina'i too has touched on the theme, but in his verse there's no special excellence of meaning; there's a bit of 'mood' and the eloquent phrase ;xaak bhii nah thaa :

dekhaa kafan ;Ta;Tol ke ham ne amiir kaa
ik ;hasrato;N kii puu;T thii aur ;xaak bhii nah thaa

[we groped around in Amir's shroud and saw
there was a single heap of longings; and there was {nothing else / 'not even dust'}]

In Nisbati's verse there's the theme of being buried alive, but lightly so. In Amir's verse there's the theme of the burying of unfulfilled longings, but no abundance of meaning. And neither of them has a 'dramaticness' like Mir's.

In the first divan, Mir has clearly profited from Nisbati's theme, but there too Mir's insha'iyah and 'dramatic' structure outweighs Nisbati's [{385,13}]:

gar saath le ga;Raa to dil-e mu;z:tarib to miir
aaraam ho chukaa tire musht-e ;Gubaar ko

[if the agitated heart would be buried alongside, then, Mir
there's an end to rest for your handful of dust]

In the first divan itself, Mir has lightened the theme of the present verse and composed it with verbosity; thus it doesn't have the same effect [{428,8}]:

;hasrat-e va.sl-o- ;Gam-e hijr-o-;xayaal-e ru;x-e yaar
mar gayaa mai;N pah mire jii me;N rahaa kyaa kyaa kuchh

[longing for union, and grief of separation, and the thought of the beloved's face
I died, but in my inner-self what-all remained!]

It's also worthy of note that in the present verse Mir has said ik ;xvaahish-e dil . One meaning of this is, 'There was one desire, and it was buried alive with me'. Another meaning is, 'There were many desires, they all died; only one remained, and even that one people buried alive with my corpse'. A third meaning is that he doesn't want to express what that desire is; he only says, 'There was one desire' (that is, he doesn't explain the desire).

In the verse below, Dard has used ek well, but his verse has more 'mood' than meaning. But what a cleanly-constructed verse it is! This style ended with Dard:

sau bhii to ko))ii dam dekh sakaa ai falak
aur tuu yaa;N thaa hii kyaa ek magar dekhnaa

[you were able to see even a hundred in an instant, oh sky
and were you here at all?! -- look perhaps at one]

[See also {617,1}.]

FWP:

SETS == EK; MUSHAIRAH; STRESS-SHIFTING
MOTIFS == [DEAD LOVER SPEAKS]
NAMES
TERMS

Here is an elegantly structured 'mushairah verse'. The first line is bombastic verbiage and quite empty of content; it promises some unheard-of wonder, without giving the smallest hint as to what it might be. Even when-- after, under mushairah performance conditions, as long a wait as can conveniently be managed-- we encounter the second line, not until the very last possible moment, when we hear the punch-word ga;Rii , does the whole verse explode into meaning. And what a meaning! That particularly Victorian fear of being buried alive has earned itself the clinical name of taphophobia.

Of course, then we still have some remaining questions. In the second line, which thing is meant to amaze us? The answer depends on where we place the emphasis. Is the amazing thing the 'single', or 'particular', or 'unique', or 'excellent', nature of the desire? Is it the idea that all the speaker's other desires died out long before his death, while only this one remained alive? Is it the idea that all the speaker's other desires died when he died, so that their corpses were buried with his, while only this one remained alive till the last? Or is it the possibility that this one special desire may continue somehow to stay alive, even in the speaker's grave? This possibility should not be too surprising, after all, since the speaker himself is obviously continuing to produce verses from underground.