Mir Taqi Mir

Mir Taqi Mir was born at Agra and in his later days lived at Lucknow under the protection of the Nawab of Oudh. The book says he wrote many kinds of verse but excelled in the ghazal and the masnawi, was the author of a biography of poets, and wrote his own autobiography in Persian, as well as Persian poetry. He is generally counted among the greatest Urdu poets.

The 2 pieces given here are drawn from Hindustani Lyrics (London: The Sufi Publishing Society, 1919), in the English verse of Inayat Khan and Jessie Duncan Westbrook. They are free renderings, not literal translations, and the original Urdu poems are untitled; each is named here by its first line.