The Bitter Sweet Life of Lovers

Love is always associated with adversity (bala):

They asked Sumnun: “Why has love always been bound up together with adversity (balā)?” He replied, “It is so that each and every ignoramus will not lay claim to love, and being confronted with adversity, they are forced to retreat.” (Tadhkirat al-awliya, 513)

 

Hadhrat Imam-i Rabbani Mujaddid-i Alf-i Sani (r.a) writes:
Maktubat-i-Imam-i-Rabbani, Vol.1, Part 3. Letter No.140.

A poem by Amir Khusro

خون گريم ار چه از ستم بيکران تو
هم خاک روبم از مژه بر آستان تو
بسيار آبگينه دلها شکسته اي
زين جرم سنگ شد دل نامهربان تو
جان رفت و نه وصال توام شد نه عيش خوش
نه من از آن خويش شدم نه از آن تو
در دل که شب جفاي تو مي گشت تا به روز
گفتم که، اي تو، در دل من، گفت، جان تو
ابرو ترش مکن که شود کشته عالمي
زين چاشني که مي نگرم در کمان تو
از تنگي دهان توام دست کي دهد
روزي من چو تنگ تر است از دهان تو
گفتي که خسرو آن من است اين چه دولت است
يعني منم که مي گذرم بر زبان تو
 

Though I weep blood over your boundless cruelty
    with my eyelashes I still sweep the dust from your doorstep

You have broken many hearts of glass,
    a crime that has turned your unkind heart to stone

No fulfillment with you, no delight for me
    Soul bereft, I don’t belong to you or myself

All night ’till dawn your brutality roamed through my heart
    “Ah, now you are in my heart” I thought—”In your soul” was the reply

Don’t frown. In those creases of your brow
    I see foreshadowed the bow that will destroy the world

Who will rescue me  from your tightly pursed mouth
    when my purse is shrunk tighter than your lips?

You said, “Khusrau is mine.” What good fortune this is
I mean, just for my name to have crossed your lips