He chose his poetical name from the profession of his father, who was an arrow-maker. He grew up in the service of Mīrzā Azīz Kūka* and, since he has been addicted to poetry from the age of ten, he has become thoroughly versed in it, and is famous throughout the world. In reply to that ode by Ummīdī the mystic,* which begins,

“Thou art the king of the kingdom of beauty,
We are beggars enjoying the spectacle,”

he was one day reciting an ode of his own before the court. When he came to the hemistich,

“I am a pure Sunnī and come from Bukhārā,”

Lashkar Khān,* the paymaster in chief, who was a Khurāsānī suspected of heresy, though he did not openly profess it,* said, “Then, Mullā, there is also such a thing as an impure Sunnī?” Mirzā ‘Azīz Kūka said on the spur of the moment, “You, for example.”

Qāsim Arsalān has the following quatrain referring to Sahmī.

“Sahmī, arīqī,* and Farīdūn* are thieves,
They are thieves like the cat, the jackal, and the monkey,
Take care not to recite your poetry before them
For these two or three poets will steal the lines from you.”

The following are some lines from Sahmī's ode written in answer to one by* Ummīdī:—

“The thought of thy mole has ever had its place in my heart, ²⁴³
I did not mention this scar to thee, but it remained on my
heart.
I sowed the seed of hope in the field of love,
But obtained no crop save a crop of despair,
When thou sawest in the mirror the reflection of thy cruel
face
The mirror melted before it from shame.”

“This is not the new moon that has risen to the highest
point of the heavens,
It is a sword hung in the air for the purpose of slaying
me.”*

“The new moon of the ‘Īd was likened to the arch of her
eyebrow.

If the simile were just there would be ever another* new
moon at her side.”
“Her mouth is like the end of a hair in its delicate propor-
tions, but see
How the sword of her tongue in speech splits the hair.”*

244 “Thou camest before me in order to vex my wounded heart,
What evil have I done that thou hast thus come before
me?”