shab kih barq-e soz-e dil se zahrah-e abr aab
thaa
shu((lah-e javvaalah har ik ;halqah-e
girdaab thaa
1) last night, when/since from the lightning of the
burning of the heart the cloud's {fear was great / gall-bladder was water}
2) every single circle of the whirlpool was a blazing flame
zahrah : ' Gall-bladder; bile; --boldness, spirit, pluck'. (Platts p.619)
zahrah aab honaa : ''The gall to turn to water,' to be much distressed or terrified, to be panic-stricken, to take fright'. (Platts p.619)
girdaab : 'Whirlpool, abyss, gulf, vortex'. (Platts p.903)
This ghazal has been called 'continuous'. In every single verse events and scenes only of the night of separation have been depicted. (68) [Josh is speaking of verses 1-8 only; he takes 9-15 to be a separate ghazal.]
The excellence of the verse is only in pushing exaggeration to the limit of its range. The poet has shown the perfection of inventiveness. First he has supposed the cloud to be a person. Then he has shown that he has a gall-bladder. He has made the gall-bladder melt into water and run off, and in it he has shown the spectacle of a blazing flame. (290)
SETS == IDIOMS;
KIH
LIGHTNING: {10,6}
Ghalib originally composed one ghazal of eleven verses, and another of twelve verses (Raza p. 124; Raza p. 125), from which he selected the fifteen verses (Hamid p. 13; Hamid p. 14) that he combined into a new ghazal and included in his published divan. More on this topic: S. R. Faruqi's choices.
Some editions of the divan divide this long ghazal into two separate ghazals: verses 1-8 as the first, and verses 9-15 as the second. (Verse 8 is not a closing-verse, but verse 9 is an opening-verse.) As always, I follow Hamid and Arshi, both of whom treat it as a single long ghazal.
The verse features a form of enjoyable wordplay (the 'concretization' of an idiom, as the cloud's gall-bladder literally, rather than metaphorically, 'turns to water' with fear. It's also an exercise in hyperbole (the cloud, made of water, fears the fire of the lover's heart); and it offers the arresting vision of a whirlpool with a heart of flame. But without the enjoyable use made of idiom 'the gall to turn to water', the verse really wouldn't have much to offer.
Nazm:
This was only the effect of the burning of my heart. (15)