S. R. Faruqi:

The phrase nau-bāvah he has used very finely in one place in the third divan too; see

{1098,3}.

He has shown the beloved bending/swaying like a rose-branch in two places in the third divan, and in one of them he has again used the phrase nau-bāvah with this image. From the third divan [{1184,8}]:

un gul-ruḳhoñ kī qāmat lahke hai yūñ havā meñ
jis rang se lachaktī phūloñ kī ḍāliyāñ haiñ

[the stature of those rose-faced ones waves in the breeze in such a way
the way the branches of flowers bend/sway]

With the nau-bāvah image [{1278,8}]:

jāgah se le gaʾe haiñ nāzāñ jab ā gaʾe haiñ
nau-bāvagān-e ḳhūbī jūñ shāḳh-e gul lachakte

[coquetries have taken them away from the place, when they have come
the new-fresh-fruiting ones of beauty bend/sway like rose-branches]

But the present verse, for several reasons, is the best of them. The first point is that in it a single person alone is mentioned, not the whole community of beloveds; thus in the verse a personal immediacy has been created. Then, the pleasure of nau-bāvah-e gulshan-e ḳhūbī is greater, because a meaning of nau-bāvah is 'fresh' or 'fresh fruit'. The relationship that these meanings have with 'garden of beauty/excellence' is greater than that with 'beauty/excellence' alone.

In addition, by saying jāʾe hai lachkā he has shown the beloved moving along. In {1184,8} there's no mention of walking or of the style of walking. In {1278,8} there's an allusion to her coming along, showing coquetry; but there's no mention of walking or the gait itself. In the present verse the image is one of movement, and is confined to the rose-branch and the beloved alone.

The final point is that in this verse the indispensability of the wordplay is so eloquent that it attains perfection. The wordplay of shāḳh and ḍālī is the most interesting, but the wordplay of nau-bāvah and naʾī is no less.

[See also {584,1}.]

FWP:

SETS == MUSHAIRAH
MOTIFS == WINE
NAMES
TERMS == WORDPLAY

SRF's final point is really the main one. The wordplay of 'branch' [shāḳh] and ḍālī is beyond spectacular. Of course officially ḍālī is the perfect of the verb ḍālnā (agreeing with the feminine t̤araḥ ), here meaning something like 'to produce, to present, to put on'. But it's also a feminine noun meaning 'branch, small branch, twig', and the line is arranged so that ḍālī comes at the last possible moment.

Thus ḍālī is positioned at the point of (at least potentially) greatest impact; and the whole grammar of the line works to prevent us from knowing whether the word in fact means 'branch' (which strikes us very readily as a strong possibility) or 'presented', until we've gotten past it and finished the line and mentally figured it out. The verse is thus a classic 'mushairah verse'-- one in which the energy is focused in a 'punch-word' that's withheld till the last possible moment and then presented with eclat.

Then there's naʾī , which is placed so emphatically ahead of its prose position (just before t̤araḥ ) that it demands, and receives, special attention. The attention we're led to give to this feminine adjective makes us all the more likely to be misdirected into taking naʾī yih ḍālī as 'this new branch'. Then in the first line, we also have the feminine adjective nirālī which means 'radically new'.

Note for meter fans: The nature of 'Hindi meter' being what it is, it's perfectly possible to scan the rhyming elements as either ā-lī t̤a-raḥ (long short short long) or ā-lī t̤ar-ḥ (long long long followed by an uncounted 'cheat syllable'). I choose the former because in Urdu generally t̤a-raḥ is the pronunciation, and often the scansion too, of that word. But if you wanted to do it in the more Arabicized style, there'd be no reason not to; both scansions of the word are quite established.