258 LXXII. ṢĀLIḤĪ.*

He came from Hirāt and has good taste both in poetry and in prose composition. He is somewhat studious and writes a good hand. He was for some time employed as one of the secretaries, and then returned to his native land. He wrote the following couplet:—

“In the night of separation from thee, in my eye-sockets
The blood from my liver was so congealed that sleep could
not enter them.”

This was written in imitation of the following couplet of Amīr Khusrav's:—

“I fenced my eyes in with a thorn-hedge of eyelashes
In order that neither thy image might leave them nor
sleep find entrance.”

The following are other verses by Ṣāliḥī:—

“With my two eyes, red with weeping during the grief of
the night of separation,
What shall I do, for these will be the roses of the day
when we meet?
I have neither desire nor strength to associate with the
rose, that I should roam in the rose-garden,
And the scent of the roses suggests to me only unfaithful-
[ness*
Like the dogs I have taken my place at thy threshold
In order that my rival may not enter in the guise of a
beggar.”*

“Since my head was severed by that dagger of cruelty
It remains, weltering in blood, in one place, and my sad
heart in another.
Love, whether in separation or in union, is a source of
pain;
Khusrav bewails his love in one place and Farhād* his
in another.”