This is the poetical name of the Khānzamān. As the events of his life are well known, not only from this selection, but from every history of Hindūstān, any further account of him would be merely a repetition. He wrote these verses:—

“Slender as a hair is thy waist,
No wider than the end of that hair is thy mouth.”

When he published abroad the ode which begins thus, many of ²³⁹ the poets of that province* wrote odes to compete with it. One began as follows:—

“I said, ‘Thy mouth is no more substantial than an idea,’
She said, ‘The idea that thou hast formed is correct.’

I composed the following:—

“Thy mouth is the fountain of Khiẓr,*
Thy tongue is a fish in that fountain.”

In these days I prefer to repent sincerely of such poetry and versification, which I published freely in the days of my ignorance, but which now appear to me to be a vain accomplishment.

The following verses are by the Khānzamān:—

“Cease, my heart, from weeping and wailing continually
like a bell,
Make, my heart, to none complaint of the cruelty of thy
love.”

“O breeze, in the court of my love, in that language which
thou knowest
Make my supplication before her, as thou canst.”

“I have a charmer whose face is like the rose, and like
hyacinths her hair,
Her rippling locks of hyacinth fall over rose-petals.”

“My love, the darling of no other is like thee,
No other lover is distracted like me.”

“O infidel boy,* we drink no cup at thy hands
We are drunk from another cup, with the wine of
‘Am I not your Lord?’”*

The Khānzamān's brother, Bahādur Khān,* also had some poetic genius, and wrote an ode. which is reproduced below on ²⁴⁰ the theme of that ode of Mullā Āsafi's which begins:—

“The night of grief has much embittered by lot.
Where is the morning? For rust has settled on my
mirror.”

Bahādur Khān's ode.*

“The wanton, cruel charmer has taken a stone in his hand,
As though he would attack me, the weary one.
My moon-faced darling sits on the throne of beauty,
He is a king, seated on his throne.
Without thee, Bahādur, they will not cease from their
wailing and their wine-bibbing
For they have taken from thee the flute of grief.”

In accordance with the saying, “the words of kings are the kings of words” this appears to be a sufficiency of the poetry of these two*