228 The Kiran-us-Sd dain of Mir Khusrau. [No. 3, 



each forming a couplet of a continuous Kasidah in the rhyme ol, which 

 if collected together would, of course, supply a running analysis of the 

 whole poem. Beside this, every now and then at the end of many of 

 the chapters there is given a ghazal, which is supposed to express the 

 poet's feelings, contemporary with that part of the story which has 

 heen just described, something like the songs introduced between the 

 parts of Tennyson's Princess. These ghazals are in various metres 

 and serve admirably to diversify the poem, while at the same time 

 they form a running commentary, like the choruses of a Greek play, 

 on the progress of the action and the hopes and fears which it may 

 be supposed to excite in the minds of the spectators. The poet, 

 having been actually present throughout the campaign, is in this 

 way enabled to throw himself into the scene, and we have thus an 

 interesting mixture of the epic and lyric elements, each portion of the 

 action being represented from an objective and a subjective point of 

 view. 



The first couplet of the Kasidah Analysis is 



Ol_jlc /»J^y •H*^ J * A3 ^ J"°y- cJ 't^ - ^J ' *^ (JH£H^ ^ (*i^ J^*" 

 but the opening lines of the poem itself are 



o-wo jjixiUj &a>IJ ^j| £jJ> 13 o-*^ /♦ilr*' «Wj|«J^ j+ik 



The usual praises follow to the Prophet and his family, and fill 

 several chapters ; then come the praises of the Sultan Moizz-ud-Din 

 Kai Kobad in two chapters, followed by a description of Dehli and 

 the Jami' Musjid and other public buildings, &c. 



At last, after this tedious series of preliminaries, the story itself opens 

 with a description of December, " when the king of the sky lays his 

 hand on the bow and shoots an arrow on the world in frost." A curious 

 episode follows on the various means of exciting warmth in the cold 

 season, by fires,warm clothes and festivities ; and the young king adopts 

 the last remedy. His realm is in peace, no sounds of war are heard, 

 " the face of the earth is controlled under his sword as the dust of 

 the ground is laid by the cloud." His carousings are rudely dis- 

 turbed by news from the East, of his father's meditated revolt. 

 Nasir-ud-Din (or, as Ferishta calls him, Baghra Khan,) had hoped 

 to succeed his father Ghaias-ud-Din Bulbun when the eldest son 

 Muhammad died, and had been grievously disappointed when the 



