Muntakhab al-tawarikh 175.4

175.4

Nevertheless I have not been installed in the office, and it is earnest desire that the effects of this good fortune may soon emerge from the region of probabilities into that of accomplished facts. Then my heart will be independent of the water of the whirlpools of daily life and the unwholesome air of every country, and the coolness of pure truth will become my portion, so that the rubbish-heap of the world will appear to me to be no more than rubbish, and the iced water of the times a mere mirage. My wretched lot impels me to be chanting ever this mournful refrain:— Wonder of wonders that your heart is not disgusted and your soul is not sick With the putrid odours which arise from these unwholesome waters! The ambition and object of me, your well-wisher, is that you will strive to help me in all matters worldly and spiritual, so that when I go to Ajmir I may remember that the name of the place rhymes with Kashmir, inasmuch as each delightful place is the pivot of one of the two axes, or rather the two extremities, north and south, of the same axis, which extends in either direction: “A delectable city, and a forgiving God!” Just as you, in Kashmir, will be drinking the ice-water of the fount Jhalava, so shall I be moistening my tongue with the limpid water of thanks and praise to the Giver of all good things, both spiritual and bodily. Verse. To the bounteous may their bounty be pleasant, And to the poor lover that which he sips.