He is a pleasing poet. He was at Agra in the service of Bairam Khān and designed an epic Book of Kings,* and completed the versification of several of the incidents to be included in it, ³⁴¹ particularly the battle against Sikandar Sūr,* which contained an account of the valour of Muḥammad Ḥusain Khān.* He presented it to the Khān at Patyālī,* and the Khān made some corrections in it and told him the whole story of the fight in proper order, from beginning to end. Manarī in one night, as it was the Khān's wish, corrected those three or four hundred couplets and read them at his levée the next morning, and received a notable reward. The following couplet occurs in that poem:—

“The sound of his trumpet deafened the sky.
The chief was perplexed by his sudden attack.”

The following opening couplet by him is very well known, and is often illuminated:—*

“In thy absence I am always destitute,
I am one who never enters thy thoughts.”

The following ghazal is by him:—

“See the down growing on the moonlike cheek of that
lovely silver-bodied one.
Both down and cheek are signs of the disturbances of the
age of the moon.*
See a chain of dark ambergris drawn across the face of the
moon;
See a ringletlike violets on a cheek like a moist rose-petal;
See her heart-ravishing eyes and her lashes that shoot
arrows,
See perils upon perils in the road of love.”

This last couplet is the best. As for the rest it is evident that he toiled hard at them to no purpose but to weary our ears.