Muntakhab al-tawarikh 309: Cll. Fikri.

309

He is Sayyid Muhammad, the cloth weaver, well known as Mir Ruba'i. In this description of poetry he is the ‘Umar Khayyam of the age. He left this world in the course of the journey to Jaunpur in the year H. 973 (A.D. 1565-66), and the words ‘Mir Ruba'i made a journey’ were found to give the date of his death.
A quatrain.
“Fikri has a head which is unfurnished with contents, He has at his heart a secret pain for which there is no remedy. For an age he has made his head his feet on the road of love. He has set out on a road which has no ending.”
As his verses are very well known I shall conclude by quoting the following few quatrains and a couplet which are attributed to him:—
“O heart, though thy love be a warrior, fear not, Though her business be oppression and mortal enmity, fear not, “When the money-changer of the recurring morn opened his shop He exchanged every copper coin that he had for a piece of gold.”