Muntakhab al-tawarikh 30.4.6

30.4.6

All those lives were poured out in the dust like roses By the fierce blast of misfortune, this is Autumn not Spring. The world full of roses and the assembly emptied of those who can smell their perfume, How should not my heart turn to blood like the rose bud at this treatment! Not one of my friends of last year remains to me this year, It is evident that “this year” also will become “last year.” Be thou also like me, oh cloud of the newly born spring Now wash thy hands of water, and rain teardrops of blood. Give me a cup, that from the depths of my regret I may empty it of wine, and fill it with bitter tears. Now that the date is 684 (H.) To me in my three and thirtieth year comes the good tidings of the thirty-fourth. Not thirty-four because if my years should be thirty thousand, when one comes to the account of Annihilation neither thirty counts for aught nor a thousand. I am not a poet, even though I were a magician, still then I shall become dust. I am not a Khusru, even were I a Kaikhusru, still at that time my kingdom would be but the grave. And in the preface to the Ghurratu-l-Kamal he writes some epitomised poems relating to this circumstance;