XLII. ḤĀLATĪ.*

His name was Yādgār, and he claimed descent from the late Sulān Sanjar,* though in the Tārīkh-i-Niāmī* Mīrzā Aḥmad says that he was a Caghatāī. He was known for his sincerity and orthodoxy. He wrote a dīvān. The following verses are his:—

“From weeping there remains not in my liver so much 222
moisture
That the bird of thine arrow could wet his bill therein.”

“Would that I could be the string of thy shift
So that thou and I might be enclosed in one garment.”*

“That line of dark musk on the page of thy cheek
Is a new revelation from on high.”

“I constantly come behind the rival and cover his eyes in
sport,
That he may have no share in the joy of beholding my
beloved.”

“The dark mole is placed by the corner of thine eye
Like a hunter sitting in ambush for his prey.”

“Again am I weeping for the beauty of that rose,
To-day have I seen the rose, for I have again become the
nightingale.”

“Thy ravishing lip has suffered much from fever spots,
Alas that thy rose-petal has been damaged by hail.”

Ḥālatī's father had the poetical name of Wālihī. This open­ing couplet is by him:—

“The moon of the ‘Id has shown her eyebrow, and glad-
dened my heart,
Thanks be to God, who has freed me from this thirty
days' grief.”*

His son, although he had the poetical name of Baqā'ī, changed it to Rusvā'ī (‘the blackguard’) on account of his unprofitable­ness. He met an early death, for having, by instructions from his mother, given his unfortunate father poison, for some fault that he had committed. He was sent, by the emperor's order, from Kashmīr to Lāhor, where the Kotwāl executed him. He had some poetic genius, and wrote the following couplet:—

223 “While thy death-dealing glance is the despoiler of life
Death looks on from afar with regret.”