Toward liabilities that will follow us at the Resurrection and the great Assembly,
where, standing before Him, we shall wish we had never even existed.

We long for what has slipped away and fret over what is still to come;
our anxiety concerns what we fear, so your life will never know ease. (1)

We have reaped nothing but worry, sin, and remorse,
while the very pleasure we once tasted has eluded us. (2)

It is as though the thing whose mere existence once delighted us,
when the soul examines it closely, proves to be a word without substance.

On another occasion, in a spirit of banter—while he was walking with Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr—they caught sight of a handsome youth. Ibn Ḥazm was struck by his beauty, whereupon Abū ʿUmar said, “Perhaps what lies beneath the clothes is not as you imagine.” Ibn Ḥazm responded with the following verses:

A certain critic (3) censures me for the one whose beauty captivated me;
he drags out his blame of my passion and says,

“Is it (4) only because of a radiant face—you have seen nothing else of him (5),
and know nothing of the body—that you lie slain? (6)”

So I told him, “You have gone to excess in reproach; take it easy (7),
for I have an answer (8) that, were I to will, could be very long. (9)

Do you not see that I am a Ẓāhirī,
clinging to what is outward until conclusive proof appears?”