In the very midst of this weary conflict, and amid all this pain and anguish, suddenly an arrow shot by Fate struck the wing of that falcon of the field of foray, and the bird of his life took its flight from the cage of the body of that noble one to the gardens of the Compassionate and meadows of Riẓwān*

Verily we are God's and verily to Him do we return.*

At that same moment the backbone of the religion of Muḥam-mad, may the peace and blessing of God be upon him, broke like the heart of sorrowful orphans, and the rampart of the religion of Muḥammad fell in like the grave of poor people of low origin, and the assistance which the arm of the king alone could give slipped from our grasp, and the confidence which the army of the Muslims had possessed* was lost. Exactly at the time of sunset, the sun of the life of that king whose sun was setting sank into the west of extinction, and the heaven, after the habit of mourners, dyed its raiment blue, while falling tears began to course down both its cheeks. Saturn, by way of fulfilling the require­ments of fidelity and the demands of mourning, turned its robe to black and bewailed the people of Hindūstān because of his death. Jupiter, in pity for that dust besoiled body and blood­stained mantle rent his garments and cast his turban in the dust.

And Mars, may the hand of his power be tightly closed as the eye of the beauties, and the face of his sustenance be dark as the locks of Ethiopians, sore wounded by compassion for that calamity, with a rankling thorn* which brought forth his heart's blood, was trembling like the Fish* before the Sun, and like the Ram* in the hands of the slaughterer, while the Sun, for shame that it had not striven to avert this calamity and prevent this disaster, came not forth, but sank below the earth, and Venus when she saw what violence the heavenly bodies were undergoing at the hands of Time, played her tambour more vehemently,* changed ^137. the tune of the drum, and commenced music in a fresh measure, and because of the death of that slave-cherishing king, others in place of uttering musical strains began to weep, and Mercury* who in forage and conquests in accord with the scribe, used to write many records of victory, in that tyranny* was blackening his face with the contents of his inkhorn, and was clothing himself in a garment of paper made of the sheets of his own records, while the new moon in the shape of a crescent on the horizon, with bowed stature, in that day of judgment which had visited the earth, was striking its head on the wall and performing all the customary mourning duties.

Thou placest thy cheek in the dust, alas, I wish not this
for thee
Moon of my days, I do not wish thee to pass beneath the
Earth.
If thou goest out to the chase (i.e. diest) thy dust is my life:
My life! is the solitude of thy dust pleasing to thee? I do
not wish it for thee.

May God, be He exalted and blessed, raise the purified and sanctified soul of that warrior prince to lofty heights and high dignities, and give him, from time to time, cups full of the bril­liancy of his beauty and glory, and make all the kindness, and clemency, and affection, and care which he evinced towards this broken down worthless one, a means of increasing the dignity and wiping out the faults of that prince. Amen, Oh Lord of the worlds!

And Mīr Khusrū* also on that day fell a prisoner into the hands of Lahorī, a servant of the Mughūl, and had to carry a nosebag and horsecloth upon his head. He recounts this circum­stance in these words—

I who never even placed a rose upon my head,
He placed a load on my head and said “It is a rose.”*

And he composed in poetry and sent to Dehlī two elegies written in tarkīb-band* which are found in the anthology known as Ghurralu-l-Kamāl.* For a space of a month more or less, folk used to sing those tarkīb-bands and used to chant them as threnodies over their dead from house to house.

The following is one of them:—