Ghazal 435x, Verse 7

Asi:

My thought about speech/poetry has become for me an excuse for silence, and the smoke of the lamp has become 'collyrium of the voice'. When someone asks, 'After all, why are you silent?', then I tell him, 'I am absorbed in thought about speech/poetry'. And if someone says, 'Why do you not speak?', then I tell him, 'The collyrium of the lamp has imprisoned my voice, so that I can't speak'.

== Asi, p. 283

Zamin:

The smoke of the lamp is 'collyrium of the voice' because when at night I put a lamp before me and thought about poetry, which was an excuse for silence, then the smoke became collyrium; and from eating collyrium, a person becomes mute.

== Zamin, p. 415

Gyan Chand:

Since the poet composes verse at night, for Ghalib the smoke of the lamp is a symbol of thought about poetry. For me, thought about poetry is an excuse to adopt silence. The smoke of the lamp has for me become collyrium, from eating which the voice gradually goes. That is, I remain so lost in thought about poetry that I don't even converse with people.

== Gyan Chand, pp. 417-418

FWP:

SETS == POETRY
SPEAKING: {14,4}

For more on Ghalib's unpublished verses, see the discussion in {4,8x}. See also the overview index.

In the ghazal world, as the commentators explain, eating collyrium causes one's voice to be lost (though no one ever explains who would eat collyrium, or why). For discussion of the qualities of collyrium, and more examples, see {44,1}.

The solitude of poetic composition is an excuse not for silence but for 'the flight of silence'-- it's an occasion when silence takes wing and soars. Compare {33,4}, in which the smoke of the lamp works on the creative poet not like 'collyrium of the voice', but like opium.