Drunken Sweetheart

Drunken Sweetheart - form Summary

Ghazal's Intoxicating Couplets

The poem is a ghazal, a classic Persian lyric form of paired, semi-independent couplets that concentrates feeling into brief, vivid images. Here the form's abrupt couplet shifts and intense, standalone lines mirror the sudden arrival of the drunken sweetheart and the speaker's instant, ecstatic response. The ghazal's compressed, declarative moments heighten mystical intimacy: physical gestures like wine, hair, and touch double as signs of spiritual union. As part of Rumi's Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, the poem uses the ghazal's concentrated energy to render divine love as immediate and overwhelming.