“And what shall I say of my blessings on you?
No bird of devotion flies from me to the lote-tree of Paradise,
For no bird bears in his beak a list of my blessings on thee.
Why should I say anything of my desire of seeing you
again?

O thou whose hand has been held in my two hands,
Who hast hindered me from the enjoyment of health,

It is impossible, that I should record my desire towards thee, ¹⁴⁶
The strong desire that I have towards thee.

Since the time when you saw fit to take your departure hence to the land where you now dwell, the interpreter of divine secrets, by which expression may be understood the root of the elements of true knowledge, gladdened me by coming to me repeatedly, both for a few days before and a few days after the festival of the new year, conveying to me the truth contained in the following couplet from the Ten Sayings of Good Tidings:—*

Couplet.

“This day a tall and comely man, in his own city,
Sits with his bride, rejoicing in his good fortune.”

You wrote with that pen which cherishes the poor and distils musk,

“Without a doubt Badāonī, excels Dawwānī,” etc.

I reply to those verses in the following manavi:—

O thou whose tongue is the key of the Hidden Book,
Whose pure heart is an outcome of the Infallible,
Thy pen hath displayed miracles,
The hidden treasures of “Be, and it was.”*
Thou saidst, with a logic which nourishes the intelligence,
“Badāonī is more pleasant than Dawwānī.”*
Whether it be of Dawwānī or of Badāonī (that thou
speakest),
Both subjects receive all their wealth from the treasure-
house of thy grace.
My heart has become the mirror of thy beauty,
The place where thy never-failing bounty is displayed.
What wonder then if, in regarding it truly,
Thou shouldst see thyself there?

If these verses be mere ostentation then let this much suffice. Who am I that I should presume in answering you? I have had recourse to poetry, wherein I have loosed the tongue of depreca­tion, seeking forgiveness, and asking pardon for my remissness in observing the custom of writing friendly letters, a custom which is contrary to the habit and wont of the vulgar, nay, may rather be described as one of the peculiar characteristics of those who are raised above the common herd, as you yourself know well, and, regarding this letter as atonement for my fault, I count it full satisfaction of all that is past.

147 As for what you wrote regarding the air of the apartment of fragrant grass, and the iced water, it brought to my mind the following verse:—

And reminded me of the saying, “O company of Muslims, have pity upon him whose stock-in-trade has declined,” for it is some days since I have enjoyed that cool air and that iced water.

Verse.

“Let him who imagines that love is an easy matter come,
and look upon my face, and from its haggardness he
will understand that lovē is a hard matter.”

His Majesty, who is near the sun in excellence, has, for some reason, and without the intervention of any person whatsoever, taken the name of me, the humblest of his slaves, on his blessed tongue, expressing some intention of bestowing on me the trustee­ship of (the shrine in) the exalted region of Ajmer.

Verse.

Those tents have vanished from the sight of me, the watcher,
Peace be on the dwellers therein, is the wish which I would
have conveyed.

Nevertheless I have not yet been installed in the office,* and it is my earnest desire that the effects of this good fortune may soon emerge from the region of probabilities into that of accom­plished facts. Then my heart will be independent of the water of the whirlpools of daily life and the unwholesome air of every country, and the coolness of pure truth will become my portion, so that the rubbish-heap of the world will appear to me to be no more than rubbish, and the iced water of the times a mere mirage. My wretched lot impels me to be chanting ever this mournful refrain:—

“Wonder of wonders that your heart is not disgusted, and
your soul is not sick
With the putrid odours which arise from these unwhole-
some waters.”

The ambition and object of me, your well-wisher, is that you will strive to help me in all matters, worldly and spiritual, so that when I go to Ajmīr* I may remember that the name of the place rhymes with Kashmīr inasmuch as each delightful place ¹⁴⁸ is the pivot of one of the two axes, or rather the two ex­tremities, north and south, of the same axis, which extends in either direction. “A delectable city, and a forgiving God!”

Just as you, in Kashmīr, will be drinking the ice water* of the fount Jhālara,* so shall I be moistening my tongue with the limpid water of thanks and praise to the Giver of all good things, both spiritual and bodily.

Verse.

To the bounteous may their bounty be pleasant,
And to the poor lover that which he sips.

A counterpart of my present condition would be the revealing of that which has been disclosed to the inspired. Your ssrvant's son has gone to Badāon, where he is employed in putting up prayers for you. May your sublime shadow never grow less!

Written in the month of Ramaẓān the blessed, dispensing blessings, in the year H. 1003 (May-June, 1595).”

The following ode is one of the productions of the Shaikh's pearl-scattering and jewel-dispersing pen, which he wrote to me during one of his travels.

Ode.

“At the moment when I was writing this letter,
My tears were flowing, mingled with blood,
All the writing which was set forth by my pen,
The letter of my longing for you, has been blotted out from my
heart.
The bitterness of separation is medicine.
Ṣarfī, so great is the flood of my tears that the nine oceans to
me
Seem but as the dropping of rain.”

To be brief I may say that one so feeble and so devoid of the graces of speech as I has not the power to recount fully the excellent qualities and perfection of the noble Shaikh. The noble works which he has left behind him, and which have, as one may say, put a girdle round the day of resurrection, are a sufficient witness to what he was. On the 18th of Ẕī-qa‘dah, in the year H. 1003 (July 25, 1595) the bird of his soul, whose nest was holiness, escaping from the cage of this world of confinement, flew to that of liberation, and the words “He was the Shaikh of nations” were found to give the date of his death.*

Verse.

Peace be to the world, for pleasant are its blessings.
¹⁴⁸ As though Yūsuf were sitting in it.

Verses.

Seek not in this waste spot the road to the treasure-house of
your desire,

For this ruined abode is nought but the place of toil and
grief.
Fate has laid, at every step herein, a snare of calamity,
Who is there that has set his foot in this region of snares
who has not also left his head here?
The vanished heart of the rose has left behind it a word of
hope,
But what can that profit us who are unable to read?*
The days of man's life are exceeding short. Be not deceived
For no sooner have you drawn a breath than you give your
life to the wind.