He was one of the jovial poets of the age. He left a dīvān, properly arranged in alphabetical order. The following verses are by him:—

“In the condition of fidelity the dog of thy street has submit-
ted to me.
Success has become subservient to me and the world wags
in accordance with my desire,
All lovers have their glances fixed on thy beauty,
O king of beauty, thy face is my full moon.”

“I planted in my heart the plant of desire for her,
But this rose-cutting has yielded me nothing but grief.”

“I had some hope that I might one day hold her ringlets in
my hand,

Alas, that my precious life has been wasted in this hopeless*
desire!”

He also wrote the following qaṣīdah in imitation of Khẉāja Salmān, and tacked on to it* the name of Qāẓī Yaḥy of Qazvīn, the grandfather of Naqīb Khān:—*

“Once more the sky shivers with December's cold,
The sun has veiled his head in clouds fearing the wrath of
the thunderbolt;
The sky once more rains arrows (of hail and snow) on the
earth;
The earth has made water itself a breastplate against the
arrow of Sagittarius;
The sea-monster, fearing the biting blasts of December,
Has placed on his head a helmet of bubbles hard as iron.
Once more, by reason of the abundance of snow and the ³³⁶
intensity of the cold,
The earth has fallen a-trembling like a sea of mercury.

The dark surface of the earth is whitened, covered with an
army of snow.
No black spot is to be found in the heart of the world,
For the surface of the earth is so contracted
That the crow can find no place for his foot thereon.*
On the lawns of the garden, instead of blossoms and ver-
dure,
In the ice and the snow which have fallen only ermines*
are to be found.
Once more trembling has fallen on the trees in the meadow.
Like me have they become thus restless from lack of liveli-
hood.*
In this cold air my body quivers like a willow,
In its weakness it is sometimes at fever heat, sometimes in
agony.
This morning a voice from heaven conveyed good news to
my ear.
Saying, ‘How long wilt thou suffer torments from the hard-
ships of these days?
Take refuge from the tyranny of vicissitudes at that
threshold
Which is as high as the threshold of the sky,
The threshold of the trustee of the sacred law, an account
of a particle of whose virtues
Would not be contained in a hundred volumes or in a thou-
sand books,
Like ‘Alī and like Muḥammad in his qualities, Yaḥy by
name;
Since his perfection is manifest why should I distinguish
him by titles?’”

Mullā Maqṣūd died in Āgra in A.H. 977 (A.D. 1569-70). His father, Mullā Faẓlu-'llāh, also was one of those who deserve the title of man, and was held in reverence. He wrote the following ³³⁷ fragment:—

“Faẓlī! Enfold not thyself in the robe of existence as a
bud is enfolded in its sheath,
Wrinkle not thy forehead and trail not thy skirt in blood;
Be like the full-blown rose, and like the|cypress
Be free from the griefs of this world and humble not thy-
self before the base sky.