“The dust that all quiet is lying
When others recline on the ground,
Around me in volumes is flying,
Like a desert where whirlwinds abound;
And Fate, in the ship of my being,
In happiness hurries me past,
But if ever from sorrow I'm fleeing,
It anchors me fast.”

Here, for comparison, is a literal translation of the original three bayts which the above stanzas represent:—

“O Muslims, alas for the tyranny of hoop-like heaven,
And the treachery of Mercury, the ill-intent of the Moon, and
the guile of Jupiter!
The action of the beneficent water on my palate is fire,
The state of the quiet earth in my abode is tempestuous!
With the boat of my life heaven ever deals in [one of] two
ways,
Urging it onward in time of gladness, anchoring it in time of
grief.”

Perhaps the most celebrated of all Anwarí's poems, at any rate in Europe, is that first translated into English verse by Captain William Kirkpatrick, under the title of “The Tears of Khorassan,” in vol. i of the Asiatick Miscellany, published at Calcutta in A.D. 1785, pp. 286-310; and again by Professor E. H. Palmer in his Song of the Reed, pp. 55-62.

“This poem,” says Kirkpatrick, “is one of the most beautiful in the Persian language. The sentiments are throughout natural, and not unfrequently sublime; the images are for the most part striking and just; the diction is at once nervous and elegant, animated and chaste; and the versification, although not everywhere equally smooth and flowing, seems, notwithstanding, to be happily adapted to the subject, the measure being, as I believe, the most slow and solemn that is used in Persian poetry.”

It has also a considerable historical interest, as giving a graphic description of the deplorable ravages wrought in what was previously one of the most flourishing parts of Persia by the barbarous Turcoman tribe of the Ghuzz, about the end of the year A.H. 548 (beginning of A.D. 1154). This tribe, whose pasture-grounds lay round about Khatlán, a dependency of Balkh, paid a yearly tribute of 24,000 sheep to the kitchen of King Sanjar. The harshness and greed of his steward (khwánsálár) having led to disputes and bloodshed, Qumáj, the Governor of Balkh, wrote to Sanjar to complain of the growing power and insolence of the Ghuzz, and asking to be appointed commissioner (shaḥna) over them, promising speedily to reduce them to obedience, and to raise their tribute to 30,000 sheep. Qumáj, however, failed to make good his promise, for he was defeated by them and driven out of their territories, and his son 'Alá'u'd-Dín was slain. Thereupon Sanjar was persuaded by his nobles to take the field in person, and to reject the apologies and indemnity of 100,000 dínárs and 1,000 Turkish slaves which the frightened Ghuzz now offered. When he drew near to their encampment they came out to meet him as suppliants, accompanied by their women and children, praying for forgiveness, and offering seven maunds of silver from each household. Again Sanjar was prevented by his amírs, Mu'ayyid, Yarunqush, and 'Umar-i-'Ajamí, from listening to their proposals; battle was joined, and the Ghuzz, now desperate, fought with such fury that they utterly routed Sanjar's army, took him prisoner, and brought him captive to Merv, his own capital, which they looted for three days, torturing the unfortunate inhabitants to make them disclose their hidden treasures. Thence, reinforced by thrice their number of disbanded soldiers and other rogues, they pushed on to Níshápúr, where, meeting with some resist­ance, in which several of their number were killed, they wrought so terrible a massacre in the Great Mosque that “the slain could not be seen for the blood wherein they lay.” They also burned the Muṭarriz Mosque, a building capable of hold­ing 2,000 persons, and by the light of the conflagration continued their ravages. They camped outside the city, visiting it daily to kill, torture, plunder, and destroy. Amongst the victims of their cruelty, who numbered several thousand persons, were many eminent and godly men, such as Shaykh Muḥammad Akkáf and Muḥammad b. Yaḥyá, of whom the latter was mourned by the poet Kháqání in at least three different poems. * So complete was the desolation of this once flourishing city that, says the author of the unique history of the Seljúqs entitled the Ráḥatu'ṣ-ṣudúr, Mu'izzí might have been thinking of it when he wrote:—

“Where once my charmer might be found in gardens fair with
friends around,
The owls and vultures now abound, the foxes, wolves, and jackals
stray:
Where stood the cups and bowls, the fleet wild-ass now tramples
with its feet;
In place of flute and fruit so sweet now crows and ravens wing
their way.

So utterly the dark-blue Sphere hath swept away those traces
dear
That no explorer now, I fear, could guess where once I wooed my
may.”

Throughout all Khurásán, with the exception of Herát, which successfully held out against them, the Ghuzz acted in the same way and for two years Sanjar was a captive in their hands. Then at length he succeeded, by bribing some of the Ghuzz chiefs, in effecting his escape from Balkh to Merv, where he began to collect an army; but grief at the ruin and desolation of his domains brought on an illness which proved fatal to him in A.H. 552 (= A.D. 1157). He was buried in the Dawlat-Khána at Merv.

The “Tears of Khurásán” was written during Sanjar's captivity, probably about A.H. 550 (= A.D. 1155), and, accord­ing to Kirkpatrick, is addressed to Muḥammad b. Sulaymán, Prince of Samarqand, though this is not certain. It is, unfor­tunately, too long to quote in full, for it comprises seventy-three couplets, but I subjoin a few of the finest passages in the renderings of Kirkpatrick and Palmer. Here are the first three stanzas of the former, corresponding to the first four­teen lines of the latter and the first five couplets of the original:—