LXIV. SAYYIDĪ.*

His name is Sayyid Shāh, and he has already been mentioned. He comes of the Sayyids of the Garmsīr* who settled in Kālpī. He is of a cheerful disposition and is pleasant in conversation and is to some extent imbued with religious mysticism. He is the disciple of Shaikh Salīm Cishti. He was for some time in the emperor's service, but it was his fate to leave it, and he has 247 since spent his time in the service of various Amīrs. He is now in Kābul with Qilīj Muḥammad Khān. I quote the following few couplets of his:—

“I am in the first pangs of love, and my heart is disquieted,
Like a child who trembles as he wakes from sleep.”

“Since that stately cypress-like beauty made for herself a
necklace of roses,
I envy the roses, and the roses envy her shift.”

“From my strayed heart the breeze obtained no news of
what had happened,
Although thy two locks spread their tresses to the wind.”*

“Reverence forbids me to set foot in my house,
Since the whole house has been filled with the effulgence
of thy face.”

“I utter not a word of the secrets of thy favours and thy
chiding,
No sound arises from him who has been killed in sub-
mission to thee.”

“Although there remains to nobody in the reign of the
king of the world
Anything but a draught of water and a patched garment,
Yet thanks a hundredfold are due to God that poverty
has become universal,
That there remains no envy among the people.”

“I wrote an ode in thy honour, lord of generosity,
Which was a faithful index of the volume of thy virtues
and perfections,
But the generosity which thou showedst to me in return
for it was so slight,
That my hope of benefiting by thy wealth was destroyed.
Thy generosity was not an equivalent for my poetry,
248 Keep, then, thy generosity, and return my poetry.”

“God forbid that I should have a heart that never ex-
periences pain,
An arrow is better in the breast than a dead heart.”