Muntakhab al-tawarikh 379.1

379.1

“Two couplets one day seared my heart, As the singer was chanting them to his guitar: Many Junes, Decembers, and Aprils Will come after we have become dust and bricks, While those who are now invisible to me Will come and pass over my dust.” Praise be to God! My pen, in its atrabiliousness, has, like a madman, dealt drily and coolly with everybody, and has poured out from the cup of its heart every drop of black bile wine poet, sometimes under the name of Samai and sometimes under that of Vafi, but at last settled on the poetical name (Hashim) which is now given to him. He had most excellent taste in poetry. The following verses are his:— ‘O turtle-dove, whatever thou bewailest in the garden, Thou must surely be thinking on her cypress-like form. Like a sparrow I am caught in thy snare, And thou neither slayest nor releasest me.