BABUR (1483-1530)

In India, great is this man's fame.
Conquest was his game.
Babur, we're told, means tiger.
As Babur he was as much a tiger
As by his full real name.

Steeped in Persian culture,
A warrior Babur was by nature.
He was born in an Uzbeck valley,
And forth from there he sallied
To vast lands wherein he'd wander.


Babur knew both good luck and bad.
An army and illnesses he almost always had.
The Mughal Empire he founded
When a much larger army he pounded,
This wandering Turkish lad.


A literate man was he
Who loved good poetry.
Babur wrote in his memoirs
The tales of his wars.
Call it autobiography.

Babur came from ruling families,
Ghengis Khan and Timur on his tree.
His lieutenant and son
And successor was Humayun.
He was quick to adopt new weaponry.

Babur knew how to recruit.
Soldiers he found to suit.
Of the crop they were the cream.
He inspired them with his dream.
And a strategist he was to boot.


But how'd he finance his army
Before glory came to he,
This man of prodigious strength
Though a Muslim who loved to drink?
That's what puzzles me.

And, not that now it matters,
I wonder, for that matter,
How nine wives Babur supported
And if, after they were courted,
They grew somewhat fatter.

Babur lived a lifestyle lavish.
He used his share of hashish.
He loved the gardens of Kabul
And was finally entombed in Kabul
According to his wish.

(I read a Wikepedia article on Babur.)