The poems in Faiz, a Wailing Nightingale establish Faiz as a great lyricist who embraced traditional motifs and subjects with an unrivaled passion and proclivity for verse that explores the natural and illusory qualities of love. Yet, as the title of the collection asserts, Faiz was a wailing nightingale - a tortured man who loved beauty, but found himself surrounded by the pain, sorrow, poverty, bloodshed, and tears of daily life in post-Colonial Pakistan. It is in this dynamic counterpoise that Faiz's artistry becomes manifest, mixing the good, the bad and the ugly in a delightful manner.