Muntakhab al-tawarikh 335: CXXV. Mauji.

335

He was Qasim Khan of Badakhshan, one of the well-known Amirs of the emperor Humayun. He was well acquainted with the art of poetry and wrote poetry well. He wrote a masnavi of six thousand couplets in imitation of the Yusuf-u-Zulaikha (of Jami) from which the following few couplets descriptive of the beloved are extracted : —
“ The priceless jewelled band which bound her hair Has fallen on her neck, feeling its own worthlessness beside her hair, She has not hung earrings of bright rubies in her ears For there are hung distracted hearts. Fortune, of its great favour, has not adorned The neck of her dress with pearls like her teeth ; For as an ornament of the bosom of her goodly dress Drops of blood fall from her face.
‘Ala’u-d-daulah. He snatched it from me, and, tearing out the leaf containing an account of himself, tore it to pieces, just as the book of his life was torn to pieces. I also, in those days when I had not repented of such vain conceits, composed the opening couplet of an ode in four metres, a mere piece of trash which is not worthy of mention. I hope that the generous recording angels have blotted it from the record of my deeds with the water of forgetfulness.