He was a high-minded young man of sound understanding and he composed poetry of all kinds well, but he became so puffed up with pride and conceit that he lost the regard of all, and he never reached old age. When he first came from his country to Fatḥ-pūr he attached himself to Shaikh Faiẓī above all others, and in truth, the Shaikh treated him well, and in this last journey he lived in the Shaikh's tents until the camp reached Atak, and was supplied with all the necessaries of life by the Shaikh, but at length, in accordance with the long-standing habit of the Shaikh, who is friendly with everybody for a week, a coolness sprang up between them, and ‘Urfī attached himself to Ḥakīm Abū-'l-Fatḥ, and afterwards, by means of a recommendation which he received from the Ḥakīm, to the Khānkhānān. with whom both his poetry and the esteem in which he was held made great progress daily. One day he went to Shaikh Faiẓī's house and found him fond­ling a puppy. ‘Urfī asked, “What is the name of this child of my lord's?” The Shaikh replied, “His name is well-known (‘Urfī)”, and ‘Urfī replied at once, “May it be auspicious.”* The Shaikh was very angry, but to no purpose.

Both ‘Urfī and Ḥusain anā'ī* have wonderful good fortune with their poetry, for there is no street or market in which the booksellers do not stand at the roadside selling copies of the dīvāns of these two poets, and both Persians and Indians buy them as auspicious possessions, while it is quite otherwise with Shaikh Faīẓī, who has spent large sums from his jāgīrs in having his works copied* and illuminated, and nobody asks for them, the only copy for which he has had any sale being the solitary one which he himself sent abroad.

‘The power of pleasing and grace of diction are gifts of God.’

‘Urfī has a dīvān of his collected poems, and a manavī in the metre of the Makhzan-i-Asrār* which is known throughout the ²⁸⁶ world. The following few verses are quoted as a memorial of ‘Urfī:—

A quatrain.

“On the morrow, when the workers of every craft shall be
summoned,
When the good acts of Shaikh and Brahman shall be inves-
tigated,
There shall be taken from thee not a grain that thou hast
reaped,
But for everything that thou hast not sown a harvest shall
be required.”

The following couplets are by him:—

“He who thirsts for the blandishments of thy lip knows
That the frown on thy forehead is a wave of the water of
life.”

“Nobody has been born who can bear the pain of love;
Every afflicted one has betrayed himself by changing colour
as he told his story.”

“As I sing of love I weep bitterly,
I am but an ignorant child and this is my first lesson.”

“Step not beyond the bounds of ignorance, or else become a
Plato,
A middle course is a mirage with raging thirst.”*

The opening couplet of the ode from which the last couplet is taken is as follows:—

“My conversation in society consists of muttered speeches,
For here those reputed sensible are ignorant, and my speech
is Arabic.”

The following couplets are also by him:—

“How shall I endure my desire for my beloved, for, by the
laws of love
A mere glance is disrespect and a thought of the beloved is
derogatory to her.”

“Of what pain has it been decreed by Time that I should
die,
That the eyes of my soul have not gone forth to welcome?”

“I speak no word, for silence is better than speech, ²⁸⁷
I have no knowledge, for oblivion is better than knowledge.”

“The Ka‘bah would have circled round thy head and circum-
volated* it
Had it had but pinions and wings”