26S 



A brief notice of some of the 



handicraft in order to obtain easier access to a damsel, of whom he 

 became passionately enamoured, under pretence of disposing of his 

 needles. Towards the close of his career he retired from the world, 

 in order to devote himself exclusively to the study of theology under 

 the spiritual guidance of Senai, and other celebrated teachers. He 

 commenced by performing the pilgrimage to Mecca, which his history 

 tells us was accomplished after the most approved and orthodox 

 fashion. In the subsequent penitentiary exercises he manifested great 

 severity and self denial, and alludes to his sufferings in a Diwan 

 comprizing 8,000 verses, wherein all that is touching and pathetic in 

 Persian poesy has been employed to paint the anguish and remorse he 

 felt for his sins. It is said that he appeared after death to one of 

 his friends, and informed him that the Almighty's pardon had been ex- 

 tended to him, on account of the following lines, composed in the 

 highest fervour of devotion : 



jJ* i3,j7 alJu c^ji> If j a * \s> l> 



I have brought into thy presence, oh God ! four things that are not 

 in thy treasury, viz.— nothingness, poverty, sin and repentance. 



Ruchi, a disciple of Sozni, wrote a quatrain on the occasion of his 

 master's death, wherein he observes, in allusion to his surname Sozni, 

 " every hair of my eyelids has become piercing as a needle to my eyes, 

 since I can see him (Sozni) no longer; and every hair of my body as a 

 thorn in my flesh, in that he is lost to me. Heaven now has nought 

 for me, save the demonstration of its wrath." 



One day the poet Fazli found Sozni in an assembly of literary men, 

 with a face much inflamed in consequence of a controversy he had 

 entered into with one of his friends. Fazli enquired with some asto- 

 nishment what was the reason of so great an alteration in his looks j 

 Sozni, moved by the brusque manner in which the question was put, 

 retorted on his interrogator, who happened to possess a countenance 

 the very reverse of beautiful, " The moment I saw you, my sins came 



