The main source of information on Mir's life is his autobiography Zikr-e-Mir, which covers the period from his childhood to the beginning of his sojourn in Lucknow.

Especially, as Frances W. Pritchett points out, the austere portrait of Mir from these masnavis must be juxtaposed against the picture drawn by Andalib Shadani, whose inquiry suggests a very different poet, given to unabashed eroticism in his verse.

However, after Ahmad Shah Abdali's sack of Delhi each year starting 1748, he eventually moved to the court of Asaf-ud-Daulah in Lucknow, at the ruler's invitation.

[12][6] The marker of his burial place is believed to have been removed in modern times when railway tracks were built over his grave.

[13][14] In the 1970s, a cenotaph was built in the vicinity of his actual burial place helped by Maqbool Ahmed Lari, the founder of Mir Academy in Lucknow.

[12][15] His complete works, Kulliaat, consist of six Diwans containing 13,585 couplets, comprising a variety of poetic forms: ghazal, masnavi, qasida, rubai, mustezaad, satire, etc.

[10] Mir lived at a time when Urdu language and poetry was at a formative stage – and Mir's instinctive aesthetic sense helped him strike a balance between the indigenous expression and new enrichment coming in from Persian imagery and idiom, to constitute the new elite language known as Rekhta or Hindui.

Mir's famous contemporary, also an Urdu poet of no inconsiderable repute, was Mirza Rafi Sauda.

Hasti apni habab ki si hai Yeh numaish ik saraab ki si hai[19] My life is like a bubble This world is like a mirage Dikhaai diye yun ki bekhud kiya Hamein aap se bhi juda kar chale She appeared in such a way that I lost myself And went by taking away my 'self' with her Just her glimpse rendered me numb away she went leaving me separated from me At a higher spiritual level, the subject of Mir's poem is not a woman but God.

Dikhaai diye yun ke bekhud kiya Hamen aap se bhi juda kar chale When I saw You (God) I lost all sense of self I forgot my own identity Other shers: Gor kis diljale ki hai ye falak?

Shola ek subah yahaan se uthta hai What heart-sick sufferer's grave is the sky?

Blood falls when it doesn't fall Bekhudi le gai kahaan humko, Der se intezaar hai apna Where has selflessness taken me I've been waiting for myself for long Raah-e-door-e-ishq mein rotaa hai kyaa[20] Aage aage dekhiye hotaa hai kyaa In the long road of Love, why do you wail Just wait and watch how things unveil Deedani hai shikastagi dil ki Kya imaarat ghamon ne dhaai hai Worth-watching is my heart's crumbling What a citadel have sorrows razed Baad marne ke meri qabr pe aaya wo 'Mir' Yaad aai mere Isa ko dawa mere baad O Mir, he came to my grave after I'd died My messiah thought of a medicine after I'd died Mir ke deen-o-mazhab ka poonchte kya ho un nay to kashka khaincha dair mein baitha kab ka tark Islam kiya What can I tell you about Mir's faith or belief?