Arabic & Persian
Abd-ul-Hamid
Abd-ul-Hamid was born in the Mohmand village of Mashu Khel near Peshawar and was brought up for the priesthood. Raverty could not fix his birth year but places it about the middle of the last half of the seventeenth century, and gives his death as about A.D. 1732 on village testimony.
Raverty calls him the cynical poet of the Afghans, compared with Sa'di in Persian, and says that Persian critics knew him as 'Hamid the Hair-splitter'. His odes, from the Diwan 'Dur-o-Marjan' ('Pearls and Corals'), mix moral satire and contempt for worldly vanity with Sufi doctrine.
Poems (60)
- I: O Thou, for ever, with the cares of…
- II: This world, O friend, is neither mine nor…
- III: I know not, in the least, whether this…
- IV: Love, assuredly, is both profit, as well as…
- V: In such wise have the fair made away…
- VI: How shall I stroll in the garden, without…
- VII: Do not become, like the bubble, wholly vain…
- VIII: A spoiled son taketh not to discipline and…
- IX: I am sunk in care, to this degree…
- X: In what manner shall I hush the sighs…
- XI: My heart hath gone out, as a help…
- XII: From the fire and fever of separation defend…
- XIII: O necessity! what a terrible calamity art thou
- XIV: The friendship of this world's friend is false…
- XV: Keep thy face for ever wet with the…
- XVI: Since the world's pomps and vanities are accounted…
- XVII: Shroud well the sight from the black eyes'…
- XVIII: When black antimony is applied unto dark eyes
- XIX: Were the looks constantly directed to every fair…
- XX: The fragrance of the flowers of this world's…
- XXI: Soften, O God, the heart of the guardian…
- XXII: To thyself thou speakest well, but actest not…
- XXIII: Although free from grief and sorrow, am I…
- XXIV: Though I have become crushed by the multitude…
- XXV: Patience and forbearance, turn man's nature into fire
- XXVI: Be not grieved at the departure of this…
- XXVII: My friend observeth none of the usages of…
- XXVIII: Really, this existence, so to say, is altogether…
- XXIX: When the dear friend who departed, unto her…
- XXX: O thou constant endurer of misery in the…
- XXXI: At the present time, extinct is the principle…
- XXXII: Every rebel is brought to submission, by sincerity
- XXXIII: To this degree, art thou become absorbed in…
- XXXIV: Were there any chance of thy exhortations taking…
- XXXV: When men covet, from their fellow-men, any worldly…
- XXXVI: Be not captivated by the friendship of this…
- XXXVII: I perceive in friendship together, the vile, deceitful…
- XXXVIII: When my love for thy sweet face became…
- XXXIX: If kings have a liking for the throne…
- XL: O, when are the sorrows of love so…
- XLI: Though thou mayst speak with warmth or anger
- XLII: Every chieftain, who contemplateth the injury of his…
- XLIII: Until thou, against the belly, makest a determined…
- XLIV: Many, many times have I rent my garment…
- XLV: Thy face hath shamed the rose, and thy…
- XLVI: Wherefore doth the possessor of beauty boast of…
- XLVII: Though I adjure thee again and again, a…
- XLVIII: How unseemly, how culpably, thou pratest, O addle-head…
- XLIX: Though thou canst manage to give it good…
- L: How many lions hath fortune made a spectacle…
- LI: Since thou confessest unto ignorance, it proveth thy…
- LII: Whom love may make lighter, even than a…
- LIII: Thou shouldst not take amiss, O beloved! my…
- LIV: Whereas I discovered the science of the alchemy…
- LV: When a superior entereth into contention with an…
- LVI: Since thou art occupied in giving ear unto…
- LVII: God forbid that the mouths of affliction be…
- LVIII: Thou meltest me, every moment, in a hundred…
- LIX: Although on thy sitting and rising thou mayest…
- LX: Like as thou art all powerful over me…