Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833/Tomb of Mahomed Shah
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SULTAN MAHOMED SHAH’S TOMB, BEJAPORE.
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TOMB OF MAHOMED SHAH.
The tomb of the Sultan lies under a wooden canopy, in the centre of the room, on a platform of granite eighty feet square, and is raised four feet above the level of the floor. Over a lofty door-way, through which you enter on the southern side, are some Arabic inscriptions in Togra letters, which are sculptured in alto-relievo. The characters are gilded, and the ground is granited with a liquid preparation of rajaward, or lapis lazuli, which gives the whole an appearance of a beautiful distribution of gold and enamels. All the inscriptions that I shall have occasion to mention are sculptured and ornamented after this fashion; and being disposed in all varieties of shape and figure, have a very elegant effect. They are said to be all extracts from the Koran, but the characters are so entwined and interwoven with each other, that the quickest reader of this hand would find some difficulty in deciphering them. I was, however, successful in discovering a Persian inscription line, which is a chronogram on the death of the Sultan Mahomed. The line translated is, “The end of Mahomed was happy.”—Elliot's Views in India
HAT do they call a happy end,
How did the monarch die?
The purple for his winding sheet,
His courtiers standing by;
A shadow upon every brow,
A tear in every eye.
Methinks if I could choose my death,
Such end should not be mine;
I'd rather fall where banners wave,
And muskets glittering shine,
While onwards to its vengeance prest,
My own embattled line.
The faithful and the fond;
The faces that I dearly loved,
I could not look beyond—
The deep affection of this earth
Would be too dear a bond.
He died, and by his death-bed stood
The wife, the child, the friend,
And saw pale cheek and anxious eye
O’er him in fondness bend.
Oh, agony!—how could they, King,
Call thine a happy end?