Muntakhab al-tawarikh 222: XI. Mīr Ashkī of Qum.

222

In his poetry he displayed a pleasing fertility of imagination, and he was an imitator of Asafi. In Agra he placed the baggage for his journey to the next world on the back of Death’s swift steed. I append some of his verses.
“He whose bosom is rent with grief in thine absence beat his head with a stone so violently That the stone became nought but a handful of dust in his grasp.”
‘In grief at thine absence I will smite my head, wretched being that I am, with a stone: Should my hand fail of its office I will strike my head upon the stone.’
‘I, thy candle, O my King, am a slave like Nu’man, Though decapitated a hundred times I yet live.’
‘Those slain by thy cruelty lie scattered here and there like drunken men: It would seem that thy sword was tempered with wine instead of water.’
‘So much has my body melted away in grief at thine absence, That if thou castest a chain on my neck it falls about my feet.’
It is said that when he recited this last opening couplet before Maulana Sadiq in Qandahar, and sought his approbation, the Maulana said, “You have stolen this idea from Amir Khusraw of Dihli, who says:
‘So much has my mournful body melted in thine absence, That if thou placest a collar about my neck it falls to my feet.’ ”
Another Couplet.
‘If I would fall in following thee smitten with the stone of calamity, Stones rain upon me from every direction and prevent me from falling.’
Atishi seems to have used the metaphor of the stone so much as to leave nothing else for others to say upon the subject.
‘See my feeble body among the dogs of thy street: This one drags it one way, that one in that.
All my hair is dishevelled from my head down to my feet: My body appears in the midst of it like a single white hair.’