IIS 



Essay on the Metrical Compositions 



Masnavi. 

 Illahi ghunchah-i-umaid bakushai 

 Guli az rouzat-i-jawid ban(;mai 

 Bakhandan az lab-i-an ghunchah-i-bagham 

 Waz-in gul attar parwarkan dimagham. 

 Compositions written in this style never contain less than 12 couplets 

 and are often of great length— romances, love-tales, histories and 

 epic poems — the Shah-nameh of Firdousi, the Makhzen al Asrar, the 

 Shirin iva Khasro, the Secunder-nameh of Nizdmi and numberless others 

 are of this stamp, which may be truly called the heroic verse of Persia. 



The term Masnavi is more strictly confined however to poems bearing 

 this name — the productions oiJdmi, and Mouldna Rum —its rhymes are 

 generally double. The measures in which it is most frequently written 

 are seven in number — viz. 1st the Bahr-i-Sari~~2d, the HazajAjzab- 

 Makbuz Makhzuf Musaddas— 3d the Mukdrib Maksur Musamman—4ih 

 the Ramal Musaddas Maksur — 5th the Khajif Maktiia — 6th the Hazaj 

 Makzuf Musaddas — and 7th, the Ramal Majnun Muktua Musaddas. 

 It is also termed t . ^ Muzawwaj> paired, from its rhyming 

 '^^"^ 



couplets. 



The Malays have a species of verse resembling the Masnavi, known 

 under the generic term of Sayer, in which their romances and moral 

 poems are written. 



The Ghazal Jj£ 



Is a short ode, generally on the delights of wine, love or beauty,, 

 comprising from 5 to 18 distichs ; or, according to some writers, from 3 

 to 25. Under the outward symbols of sensual delights and terrestrial 

 pleasures, are frequently concealed metaphysical meanings and allu- 

 sions to divine love and spiritual beatification. 



In Ghazals the two first lines must rhyme with the second line of 

 each succeeding couplet— for instance in the following extract of an 

 ode from Akhsangi : 



