The following Qaṣīdah in praise of the Prophet* is also his, although the gurīz-gah,* nay even the commencement of the Qasīdāh in its entirety, is not suitable to the dignity of the holy ^484. Commander (of the Faithful) on him be peace.*

Qaṣīdah.

Once more the time has come when in accordance with the
summons of the sky
The rose spreads its crimson blanket on the couch of the
garden;
The clouds of Naisān, with the keen blood-hued dagger of
the lightning
Erases the word “ice”* from the pages of the earth's
surface.
The close-eyed darlings the buds, like an army of Ozbaks,*
Make a night-attack at early dawn upon the army of Dai,
Behold the forms of bud and of rose with the sky for a
branch!
The conical shadow of the earth is the bud, the sun in
heaven is the rose.
And for this reason that the assembly of the rose may not be
without a minstrel,
The nightingale has become the lute-player, the rose-branch
with its buds are the lute;
The garment of the rock would have become wet from the
moisture distilled from the clouds
Had not the mountain covered its back with the woollen
cloak* of verdure.
Had not the lightning smitten its goad upon the head of the
elephant-like cloud
It would have laid in ruins the stately edifice of the sky.
The garden became the table of ‘Īsā, and the dew lying on it*
Looked like salt sprinkled here and there upon that table,
In order that the people may not receive base gold from the
hand of the jasmine,
The tulip cambist carries hidden under his arm the touch­stone.
Every perfect thing which is not secure from the defects of
decay,
Seems in the sight of the wise and noble but a small thing.
The beloved of the garden is of perfect beauty but it had
been well
^485. If this beauty and comeliness had not been separated from it.
Alas! for that moment when at the instigation of desire the
army of Dai
Became emboldened* to lay waste the garden of roses.
The time is near at hand when the staff-bearer of the days of
Autumn
Will knock with his staff at the gate of the rose-garden.
The crow will then hold in derision the impassioned* night­ingale,
And the withered petals will lie blackened beneath the
hundred petalled rose (the sun).
The wind has cast the diadem from the head of the garden-
glory,*
While the Siparak* sets itself up in antagonism to the cheek
of the rose.
With a view to the construction of that courtyard of which
Dai* has laid the foundation in the garden,
Everywhere there lie scattered about bricks of ice and mortar
of snow,
[For aged people who have experienced the tyranny of
Autumn
The optician Dai makes spectacles of the crystal ice.
[Soon will it happen that from fear of the staff of the
watchman of Dai
The people of the sweet herbs will take to flight one after
another].*
It is better for the wise man that he determine to make the
tour of such a garden
Where the autumn cannot be persuaded to go even by force.
That garden is the rose-garden of the praise of a king of so
high dignity
That the very angels descend from heaven to frequent his
Court.
Murtaẓā* the king, both of form and reality, inasmuch as he is
the source of the union of shadow and substance.
That one who, from the impetuosity of his royal falcon's ^486.
talons,
Breaks the wing of the heavenly Eagle* as though it were a
duck.
Such a king is he that, in the train of the attendants at his
door,
Birjīs* bears the name Sa‘d, and ‘Utārid* that of Zīrak.
The table-steward of the sky, for the use of his lordly table,
Has brought the Pleiades* in his hand as salt-cellar and salt.
The moon has become the censer of his* assembly, and the
rays of the moon,*
Are the smoke of the aloes-wood which issues from that
censer,
From behind the mirror of the heavens, in accordance with
the rules of approval,
Whatever he said, Fate repeated the same like a parrot.*
[Who else is there whom they can bring into his train,
We recognise his other competitors, each one of them.
He bears no relation to tyranny-loving strangers,
The connoisseur perceives the difference between turquoise*
and glass beads;
Virtual justice and the decree of courts are mistakes,
For this reason that this question was decided in the case of
Faddak*
The widow of time, since she was not meet for marriage,
He divorced her openly and irrevocably, then he left her.]*

The following opening couplet of his* is also well-known:— ^487.

Verse.

In this grief-populated world joy has departed from my
sorrowful heart,*
We are quite accustomed to grief to such an extent has joy
been forgotten.

Verse.

We have been defamed because of the crime of love, as the
devotee is blamed for his hypocrisy;
Both of us are defamed, but what a vast difference there is
between us?

The following is also his:—

Verse.

Come not out, for you will be the calamity* of the age,
We shall be slain and you will be disgraced.

The following qaṣīdah also* is a very happy production of his:—

Every man who sets his heart upon worldly desires
In the judgment of men of wisdom is not wise;
His death occurred in the year 952 H. in the Dakkan and for
the tārīkh of his decease the words Tābi‘u ahl-i-l-bait* were
devised.

Another is Khwāja Aiyūb* ibn Khwāja Abūl-barakāt,* who was one of the hereditary grandees of Mawarā-an-nahr. Both father and son, in spite of their excellencies acquired* and inherit­ed, have become proverbial for indifference, the one in ‘Irāq and Khurāsān, and the other in Kābul and Hindustān. This Mun-ta khab has no room to relate their circumstances in detail, but they are related in many other places, and are well-known. It is said that Khwāja Abū-l-barakāt* read the following mala‘* of one of his own poems on the learned men of the age.*

Verse.

The field of my hope became parched, and a famine of faith­fulness followed.*
^488. Either this was from the fire of our heart, or that in the cloud
of our eye there remained no rain.

By way of fault-finding some one said to him that the yā () in the last hemistich was meaningless, and in its place he should have written tā (). The Khwāja repeated the following qi‘ah extempore by way of excuse:

Qi‘ah.

Whatever comes before men of discrimination,
They do not draw lines by way of criticism.
They take the dots either above or below (as may be required)
Wise men are not bound by simple dots.
They read yā () and carefully consider,
They do not read yā () but make it tā () in error.*

He also wrote a qaṣīdah in imitation of Salmān Sāwajī,* of which the following is the opening couplet:—