The Rubaiyat : Quatrain XX

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears--
To-morrow?--Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

This is the twentieth quatrain of "The Rubaiyat". The poet says O! my beloved, fill this cup of mine with that intoxicating wine. It cheers my heart and clears and helps me forget the regrets of the past and makes me unaware of the fear of the future (as to what lies ahead). This wine animates me and makes me forget the past and the future. Why the future? Because tomorrow my beloved, I may be dead. I may be what I was seven thousand years ago (a lump of lifeless rock, the poet assumes that life started seven thousand years). The motif of the quatrain being enjoying the present for tomorrow no one knows, we may be dead and consequently a relic of past.

Translation - Zindagi Apni Jab Is Shakl (Ghalib)

zindagi apni jab is shakl se guzrii Ghalib
hum bhi kya yaad karenge ki khuda rakhte thein

Line 1/2 -  When my life passed in this shape Ghalib, will we even remember that we used to have a God? The poet says when this life of ours was passing in such bad circumstances, will be even remember that we used to have a God. In the misery of my situation, will I remember that we were once in His hands? He forged the good times for us, and now the bad times are also His ways. But will we remember Him?

There can be multiple ways in which these lines can be understood. Another possible stream of thought can be how earlier we have seen better days under Him, but now in these bad circumstances, He has abandoned us.Yet another can be that when the bad times come, we will remember that we had a God and this bad fate is also His workings.

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