Life of Ahmad — Page 61
as EARLY LIFE 61 Persian. He shunned publicity. His pathetic passages drew no tears so deep or so sweet as those that fell from his own eyes while he wrote them. The Persian poems that he wrote in those days were published only after his death. The work is known as Durr-e- Makn u n. I will not stop here to discuss the merits of his poems, which I shall speak of later in a separate chapter. What I wish to record here is the fact that he wrote poetry in those days, and that his Takhallu s was Farrukh. To give an idea of his feelings and thoughts, I give a rough rendering of a letter that he wrote in Persian. It is addressed to his father; but as it is not signed or dated, it cannot be said whether it was actually delivered to him. This does not, however, detract in any way from the value of its contents: 'My revered father—May you live long and in peace. I wish to say that all around me I see, in towns and country, an epidemic that appears to separate friends from friends, and relations from relations. Not a year passes but that a calamity inflicts suffering on the world. In view of this, my heart has grown cold towards all around me, and I have turned pale out of fear. I often read the following verse of Shaikh Musli h -ud-D i n Sa‘d i Sh i r a z i , and shed tears of regret and grief: