“Through the auspicious fortune of this House I have captured the
world with the sword of my tongue.
To-day from the East to the West I am more famous than the Sun.”

Shaykh Uways succeeded to the throne in 757/1356 and reigned nearly twenty years, and to him a great number of Salmán's qaṣídas are addressed, while anecdotes given by Dawlatsháh and reproduced by Ouseley in his Biographical Notices of the Persian Poets * show the intimacy which prevailed between the two. This prince is said by Dawlatsháh to have been of such striking beauty that when he rode out the people of Baghdád used to flock into the streets to gaze upon a countenance which seemed to reincarnate the legendary comeliness of Joseph. When overtaken by untimely death, he is said to have composed the following fine verses:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“From the spirit-world one day to the realms of Body and Sense did
I roam;
I sojourned here for a few brief days, and now I am going home.
The servant was I of a mighty Lord, and I fled from my Liege and
Lord,
Whom now in shame I am going to meet with a winding-sheet and
a sword. *
Comrades of mine, I leave you now to joys which I may not share,
And that you may enjoy this banquet long is my parting hope and
prayer!”

As is usually the case with panegyrists, many of Salmán's qaṣídas refer to definite historical events, and can therefore be dated. Mawlawí 'Abdu'l-Muqtadir gives a list of ten such poems, with their dates and the occasions which called them forth, from the Ḥabíbu's-Siyar. * The earliest of them, composed in 739/1338 on the occasion of the flight of Shaykh Ḥasan-i-Buzurg to Baghdád, begins:*

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“It is the time of morning, and the brink of the Tigris, and the breath
of Spring;
O, boy, bring the wine-boat to the estuary of Baghdád!”

The two latest, composed in 777/1375, celebrate a victory of Sháh Shujá' in Ádharbáyján. * The second of them, which won that Prince's high approval, begins: * <text in Arabic script omitted> and it was after hearing it that Sháh Shujá' observed: “We had heard the fame of three notable persons of this country, and found them differing in their circumstances. Salmán exceeded all that was said in his praise; Yúsuf Sháh the minstrel agreed with his reputation; and Shaykh Kajaḥání fell short of his.”

One of the most celebrated of Salmán's qaṣídas, however, was written to commemorate the death of Shaykh Uways, which took place in Jumáda ii, 776 (November, 1374). It begins:*

<text in Arabic script omitted> <text in Arabic script omitted>

“O Heaven, go gently! It is no slight thing that thou hast done:
Thou hast made desolate the land of Persia by the death of the King.
Thou hast brought down a heaven from its zenith,
And hast cast it on the earth and made it level with the dust.
If thou walkest with truth, this is no insignificant matter:
Thou hast attacked the life and property and honour of every
Musulmán!”

As already stated, Salmán probably died in 778/1376, a year after the composition of two of the qaṣídas mentioned above, so that he evidently continued to write poetry until the end of his long life, and did not, as stated by Dawlat-sháh , * actually retire into seclusion, though he implies his desire and intention of so doing in an interesting poem cited by Shiblí Nu'mání in his Shi'ru'l-'Ajam (vol. ii, pp. 198-200). In this poem he says that for nearly forty years he has celebrated his Royal patron's praises in the East and in the West; that he is now old and feeble, lame, and weak of sight, and wishes to retire from Court and spend the remainder of his days in praying for the King; that having been the master of the realm of poets, he desires to become the servant of the poor; that he has no doubt that the King will continue his allowance, but that he would like its source and amount to be definitely fixed; and finally that he owes considerable sums of money which he cannot pay, and prays the King to discharge these debts for him. In reply the King is said to have written two couplets on the poet's versified petition, in the first of which he orders his allowance to be continued as heretofore, while in the second he assigns him the revenues of the village of Írín near Ray.

Shiblí Nu'mání concludes his notice of Salmán with a fairly detailed and wholly favourable appreciation of his skill in the different forms of verse. His skill is chiefly apparent in his qaṣídas, which are remarkable for grace and fluency of language, and for a felicity of diction possessed by none of the earlier poets, and peculiar to those of this middle period, between which two groups Salmán marks the transition. Shiblí gives the following examples to illustrate his assertion:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“Thy mouth smiled, and produced a jar of sugar:
Thy lip spoke, and revealed glistening pearls.
Thy waist was undiscoverable, * but thy girdle
Deftly clasped it round, and revealed it in gold.
Cast aside the veil from thy face, for those black tresses
Have affected the fairness of thy cheeks.”

<text in Arabic script omitted> <text in Arabic script omitted>

“The breeze of the Naw-rúz * brings the aroma of the beautiful rose,
[And] brings the dust of the musk of Tartary from the borders of
the desert.
The garden has decked the branch with the patterns of a peacock's
tail;
The wind hath fashioned the bud into the likeness of a parrot's head.
The [red] anemone hath displayed from the mountain-slopes the
fire of Moses;
The branch hath brought forth ‘the White Hand’ from its bosom. *
The sweet-voiced nightingale, for the [delectation of the] Rose-Prince,
Hath contributed the strains of Bárbad and the songs of Nikísá. *
The zephyr-breeze hath conferred high rank on the cypress;
The sweetness of the air hath endowed the anemone with a noble
robe.”

Shiblí next gives examples of Salmán's skill in inventing those graceful and subtle conceits in which the poets of the middle and later periods take pride. The following specimens may suffice:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“The cornelian of thy lip placed the coin of life in a casket of pearls;
It was a precious stuff, so it put it in a hidden place. *
Thy lips put a ruby lock on the lid of that casket;
Thy mole, which was of ambergris, set a seal upon it.
A subtle thought, finer than a hair, suddenly came
Into the heart of thy girdle, and named it ‘waist’.” * <text in Arabic script omitted>

“Henceforth make your rosary from the knots of the Magian's tresses;
Henceforth take as your miḥráb the arch of the idols' (fair ones')
eyebrows.
Arise joyous like the bubbles from the rose-red wine, and base no
hopes
On this bubble-like revolving dome [of sky].”

“For some while the revolution of this circle parted us from one another like the [points of a] compass, but at last brought us together [once more].”

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“The Zephyr found the rose-bud laughing before thy mouth,
And smote it so sharply in the mouth that its mouth was filled with
blood.”

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“I will not set my foot one hair's breadth outside this circle, *
Even though they should split me like a compass into two halves
from head to foot.”

Other points in Salmán's poetry noted by Shiblí Nu'mání are his skill in the successful manipulation of difficult rhymes and awkward refrains. Thus he has long qaṣídas in which each verse ends with such words as dast (“hand”), páy (“foot”), rú (“face”), bar sar (“on the head”) preceded by the rhyming word, yet which maintain an easy and natural flow of words and ideas.