Muntakhab al-tawarikh 363.1

363.1

“Whilst thou art far from me, O moon that illuminest my heart, I sleep not at night and have no ease during the day, My tears, rose red with blood, trickle adown my cheek Like tulips blooming in a field of saffron, My eyelashes are tinged with the blood of my heart Like branches of red coral showing their heads above the ocean. I, like the serpent of the Speaker, “ will overpower him in a minute.” He wrote the following couplet in praise of the prophet: “The seal of thy finality has broken the seals of old And has introduced in its device a new and fresh design.” The following verses are selected from one of his poems concerning one of the great ones among those of our kind, ingenious in oppression: — “How long wilt thou boast saying, ‘In magic I am a Samiri, a Samiri, a Samiri’ ? Every breath of mine is one of the miracles of ‘Isa, A flame of light from the bush of Moses. In eloquence I am the phoenix of the age, The teacher of all the eloquent. Each breath of mine deprives magic itself of patience (in enduring its inferiority). Each speech of mine is magic that would deceive angels. I am the king of the kingdom of omniscience, I am the wise man of the region of sublime realities; I am the jeweller who values the chain of rhetoric, I am the assayer of the coin of eloquence. All this am I. To-day, in this contest, Thou dost but take a flame of fire on thy tongue.