His name is Khẉāja Ḥusain. Before he came to India the ²⁰⁸ great men of his country used secretly to assemble at social gatherings to consider and discuss even one couplet by him, and in each gathering his verses were read by way of good augury, and all agreed, both with tongue and pen, in his pre-eminence in poesy, and recorded their opinions. Since his arrival in India all his poetic fancy has been frozen by envy, and he is fallen into the corner of neglect and become the target for a hundred shafts of criticism, and wanders distracted in the way of the vulgar. His dīvān is well known and contains a good manavī, although it is for the most part pointless, and its style is not comparable with that of his loftier odes. He has, how­ever, a poetic nature, and in all subjects save unity, preaching, advice, and direction he has wonderful aptitude. I quote these few couplets as a memorial of him:—

“Such grace rains down from her from head to foot,
That one could sweep grace out of her bed.”

The idea expressed in this couplet, however, very closely resembles that in the couplet of the master-poet:

“She causes blandishments to spring from the ground, she
scatters grace in the air
By means of her graceful gait and her sweet foot on the
earth.”

“If, for example, thou sittest* behind a mirror, a person
Standing before it sees his own image with the face
reversed.”*

‘I shed so much grief abroad from my house
That the difficulties of my house are from without the
door.”

In describing an ambassador he says:—

“Like the sun in the sky thou hast traversed the world,
Like sleep thou art welcome to all eyes. ²⁰⁹
The sun, perchance, is but a distillation from thy hand,
Which washes the whole world with one drop of water,
Such blackness has overspread that tribe whose fate is
dominated by Saturn that if, for example,
Each hair on their bodies became a candle,
The sight of man would not be able to distinguish their
faces.*
The sound of their shoes would snatch Venus away from
life,
Their hideous voices reach not the understanding,
Their gait is like fire, their speech is like war,
The sight of them is punishment and their voice is a
brazen trumpet.
If a thought of them passes through the mind of the
wet-nurse
The child from fear desists from sucking.”*

“O thou! from the splendour of the fair candle of whose
face the mirror is illumined,
From whose reflection the mirror seems to cherish a soul,
Place not the mirror before thee for the sake of seeing
thyself,
Reflect rather on my condition and look not in the glass.
Fire has burst into flame in my heart, like its reflection in
a mirror,

Since the sunlight of thy face has been reflected in every
mirror.
²¹⁰ If the burning blast of thy wrath should break into flame,
It will see its reflection in every mirror.”

THE SONG OF THE CUPBEARER.

“Come, my heart, to the wine-shop of the people of the
Secret,
Drink of the cup of truth which melts outward semblance;
So free thyself from the outward form
That thou mayst, like the fairy, become invisible to vulgar
eyes.
Perchance the desire of that guide shall seize thee
So that thou mayst obtain a place in the street of the
wine-shops.
Bring me,* cupbearer, that candle which lies in privacy,
Which is hidden, like the hand of Moses,* in his sleeve:
Give it into my hand and thus make my hand resplendent
That in its light I may stretch forth my hand to perform
miracles.
Come, O cupbearer, and for the sake of the drunken
debauchees
Stretch forth thy hand to shed the blood of the bottle.
Look to the circulation of the bottle and reck* not of
punishment.

For in times of famine it becomes lawful to drink blood.
Give me, O cupbearer, that amber of existence
That by means of its attraction I may ascend
And may pitch my tent above this lowly place,
And, like ambition, may set my foot on whatever is!
Bring me, O cupbearer, that warm-blooded wine
Which increases love in my heart.”

This “Song of the Cupbearer” clearly contains many vul­garisms, for everywhere he has used “come” in the sense of “bring,” and he has reproduced the expressions used by masters of poetry on the same subject, forgetting that their expres­sions are used in brief fragments, of which the second couplet is dependent* on the first.

In his ode on the sun the following couplet occurs:—

“The sun's reflection makes manifest in water the properties
of oil
When he makes of the dust of his worth a crown.”*

He has written odes on sublime subjects, but in a mean style, and to him the proverb applies:—

“Their houses are lofty, their spirit is low,
O Lord! make these two things equal.”*