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English translation

Zahir Faryabi - may God the Exalted have mercy on him - he is among the celebrities of the world and among the excellent ones of the age. His entire divan is pleasing and well-received; in the delicacy and fluency of his speech there is no one like him. His divan is famous and his verses are recited on tongues. In the era of Atabak Abu Bakr he received much patronage. One night in his assembly he recited this ruba'i:

O rosebush of the angels, the prayer for your secret— the age has no head worthy of your head. The sheath of your sword said to your enemy: may the secret of my heart be the fate decreed for your head.

He commanded that a thousand dinars of red gold be scattered upon him in the assembly. Following this ruba'i he recited another:

O king, through you the affairs of realm and religion are set in order, and from your justice the soul of tyranny and sedition is at its last breath. In your reign the Rafizi and the Sunni together have agreed that Abu Bakr is the truth!

And among the subtleties of his verse are these several couplets in the style of the masnavi:

A scholar said atop the pulpit that when the hidden abode is revealed, God will forgive the white beards their sins for the sake of the black beards; and again the black beard, on the day of hope, will be under the protection of the white beard. A little red-bearded man was present; he laid his hand upon his beard when he heard this, and said: We ourselves are not in this reckoning— in neither world are we of any use.

And his mastery in poetry is such that the earlier poets have differed over him and Anvari and over the preference of one above the other, so that some, by way of inquiry, have said to others:

O you earth of dignity who, in the heaven of merit, are a moon of blessed form, a sun of countenance: One group of the critics of speech prefer Zahir over the verses of Anvari; another group deny this claim. In sum they are in a place of dispute and litigation. Show them the preference of one side, for the realm of eloquence lies beneath the seal of your command.

And Emami Heravi has said in reply to him:

O traveler upon the paths of natural discernment, in this question you are not excused, if you truly look. To distinguish—given the incommensurability between these two modes— there is no need for this spreading-out of commentary; for this is a miracle and that is magic, this is light and that a lamp, this is the moon and that a star, this is a houri and that a fairy.

And another has said in reply to that same piece:

Every novice who vainly gives preference to the verse of Zahir over the pure speech of Anvari resembles that group who could not tell apart the miracle of Moses from the magic of the Samiri.