Synopsis Iqbal was a poet of 20 century, but in his poetry there is a wholesome fusion of the physical and metaphysical, a mutally inclusive combination of the material and the moral. His poetry transcends time and space, and it is not easy to draw a line between the earthly and the heavenly thoughts in it. He was a successor in a long line of Persian and Urdu poets of Iran and the sub-continent, culminating in Mirza Asadullah Khan ‘Ghalih’ (1797-1869), who is regarded as the most prolific poet of the 19-century. He transmigrated literally Ghalib’s soul into his writings. There is spontaneity, variety and diversity in his poetry. And he paid a poignant tribute to Ghalib in his poem ‘Mirza Ghalib’ which appears in this collection. His poems like ‘Himalaya’ (which he wrote in the year 1901), ‘Tarana-e-Hindi’, Naya Shivala’ ‘Shikva’ and ‘Javab-e-Shikva’ are the masterpieces in Urdu poetry.