Unsuri

Abul Qasim Hasan Unsuri Balkhi (died 1039/1040) was Persian poet.

Quotes

The Battle-field of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi

• A scene like Paradise! 'Tis not Farkhar
  Yet all the splendour of Farkhar is there.
  Kisses of loyal kings imprint the earth,
  Faces of fair youths fill with light the air.
  Then look how gold and silver pleiades
  Bestud the rolling sky of scimitars,
  And how, like dagger's peral-encrusted haft,
  Each baldrick shows its blazonry of stars!
  • Muhammad Aufi's Lubab ul-Albab: vol. 2, p. 29, quoted in Islamic Poetry and Mysticism, p. 30

Poem

• A dialogue occurred, I happen to know,
  Betwixt the white eagle and the crow.
  Birds we are, said the crow, in the main,
  Friends we are, and thus we shall remain.
  Birds we are, agreed the eagle, only in name,
  Our temperaments, alas, are not the same.
  My leftovers are a king's feast,
  Carrion you devour, to say the least.
  My perch's the king's arm, his palace my bed,
  You haunt the ruins, mingle with the dead.
  My color is heavenly, as everyone can tell,
  Your color inflicts pain, like news from hell.
  Kings tend to choose me rather than you,
  Good attracts good, that goes for evil too
  • The Eagle and The Crow: A Dialogue, Translated by Iraj Bashiri [1]

External links

• Muhammad Aufi's Lubab ul-Albab: vol. 2