Interpreting Crocodiles and Sunlight in Ghalib

I love poetry. I grew up with an angsty devotion to Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, and I've traveled to poetry festivals, sitting in churches, cross-legged in the grass, or in a packed auditorium, to hear contemporary poets bare their souls. But, ghazals are completely alien to me. Between my initial ignorance of their historical background and translation difficulties, my first reading of the daunting, hefty packets was cloudy at best.

But, I do know that I love the more traditional ghazals when everyone is drunk on the beloved, threatening death induced by unrequited love, and living in a world of burning tapers and scented locks where the heart is the hub of the universe. One of my favorites is a piece by Ghalib that begins "It takes an age for a sigh to bear fruit,/ Who lives long enough to vanquish your locks?/ A hundred crocodiles lie coiled in the web of every wave,/ See what happens to the droplet ere it becomes a pearl." I love the diction- crocodiles, pearl,  dew-drop, twinkling, glamour, glimmer, spark, taper, burn. Even as Asad speaks about the futile nature of pursuing a woman who is slow to reciprocate his love in a lifespan that is already so brief (I think), the poem is filled with images of light. "The reflection of the sun heralds the dew-drop's doom,/ I too await your kindly glance." She is the Sun, the burning, life-bearing, center of his world. He is a minuscule, vulnerable droplet. Simultaneously, this ephemeral moment- how long dew survives before the Sun dries the earth, mirrors the impatience of desire and the briefness of life.

I'd love to know if anyone else had an entirely different interpretation of this poem!