Muntakhab al-tawarikh 297: LXXXVII. ‘Ubaidi.

297

He is a youth recently come to man’s estate. He wrote the following couplet:—
“The reward for pain which is not worthy of my asking after it Is a glance to ask for which I am unworthy.”
This couplet for some time raised a great stir (among lovers of poetry) on every side in Lahor, and on this account Hakim Abu-'l-Fath Gilani was loud in ‘Ubaidi’s praises, and presented him to the emperor. When he was asked to write more poetry he did not continue a poem on the lines of this couplet, but wrote some men of Badaon, who wrote poetry under the name of Zahid, recited, from the masnavi which he had written on the phrase ‘In the name of God,’ the following couplet:
“When the crenellations of the letter sin began to laugh The letter laughed so as to show its gums,”
The Mir said, “What are ‘the crenellations of the letter sin?’ The doors and the walls are laughing at your verse.”
Sometimes from the sprightliness of his nature he would occupy himself by writing poetry. The following couplet is his: —
“O heart, all night the street dog gets no sleep From thy cries and lamentation and wailing.”