95-

But they are nought, Life's empty pleasures,
So the hand of fate doth write ;
And the warning stands engraven
On the tombstone of Delight.
* * *

The cup we all are, seeking
Is of Life's mystic wine.
Beware lest envious strangers
Throw poison into thine."

Sir Nizamat Jung's choice of poems contain-
ing lines such as these indicates his own spiritual
tendency— and his hand on the ' melodious
strings ' shows long practice and has the fine
touch of a lyrist. .

I will now give a few lines out of his trans-
lation of Firdausi's Shahnama — the Battle of
Qadesia— published in Islamic Culture in 1937.

Be it mine to seek wisdom and greatness, and height
And the pride of a warrior in manhood and might.

Immortal the man who dotK live in his fame
When mouldering in dust is his lifeless frame.

tj o j *\* \j o

How well faith and justice a monarch adorn
When on tongues of acclaim are his praises upborne

I ^J * ^r a^ I o-ti j IT

Until life's in my limbs be it ever my will
From the world to uproot every seed-root of ill."
Even in advanced life he would sometimes
' beguile an idle hour ' as he said, by translating