CXLIII. MAḤWĪ.*

Shortly after his arrival in Hindūstān he was in the service of the Khānkhānān, son of Bairam Khān, and then went on a pil­grimage to the glorious city of Makkah. In the composition of quatrains he has no equal. The following quatrains are his:—

“So long as the ringlet falls over the moonlike face.
So long as the down on the cheek is as an army to the king
of beauty.
Even if my house is built of bricks from the sun
The days of me in my wretchedness will pass in black
misery.”
“Once I knew not sorrow of the soul and the heart,
Once I knew not what it was to weep tears of fire; 344
Now thou hast left neither name nor trace of me,
O love! I did not know that thou wert thus.”

Maḥwī, who has wandered far from the street of wisdom,
Has become a greater wanderer than a thousand Majnīms.
I saw from afar that lost one, wandering far from thee,
In a wilderness where the wind entered, into his blood.”