By JH Sayyar
Lala Mukhtar, with fingers clutched so tight,
Counts each coin beneath the candle's gleam;
His soul enslaved by copper’s cold delight,
He will trade his honor for a thinner seam.
No guest could breach the fortress of his bread,
No widow wept whose cries bend his will;
A miser's heart, where pity and grace lay dead,
He drank his tea, yet never shared a fill.
The sparrow chirped, “O Lala, life is brief!
What joy in hoards if none can taste the day?”
But he, stone-deaf to every soul’s relief,
Just locked his chest and turned his eyes away.
Yet death, in stealth, did strip his stash apart
And left but dust to weigh his jealous heart
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