For I have observed that the sun enjoys greater affection from people precisely because it is not perpetual above them. (1)
And he also said:
“If livelihoods were apportioned according to intellect,
then the beasts would perish on account of their ignorance;
never have East and West converged for a single seeker,
nor have honor and silver coins occupied one man’s palm together. (2)”
Among his verses:
“Do you not see that I have left my soul to its own course,
heeding neither the world nor the novelties it brings?
The sudden turns of fate have indeed frightened me;
yet even if they assured me, I would not accept their security. (3)
They say, ‘Will a youth weep for a lovely maiden?
Whenever he wishes, he can replace her with ten of her kind.’
But can a man substitute the five fingers of his hand,
even were he to recast their tips from pure silver? (4)”
(1) Al-Suli notes that the line is borrowed from one of the poets of Banu Asad, though the opening hemistich has escaped him: “…and were the sun of day never to set, I should soon grow weary.” The verses occur in his Diwan, vol. 2, pp. 22 and 31, within a fifty-five-line ode praising Abu Saʿid Muhammad b. Yusuf al-Tai. When ʿImara b. ʿAqil b. Bilal b. Jarir heard the poem he exclaimed, “By God, it is flawless. If poetry is to be judged by elegance of diction, excellence of meaning, and balance of expression, then your man here is the foremost poet alive; if by some other standard, I do not know.” The same lines are also cited in al-Aghani, vol. 16, p. 385.
(2) Diwan, vol. 3, p. 178, from a thirty-five-line panegyric to Ahmad b. Abi Duʿad whose opening reads: “Has it not come to pass that the thirst of the parched camels be quenched, and that a unifier string together the scattered beads?” It contains the well-known verse: “But for the traits that poetry set in her, those seeking largesse would not know whence honor is gained.” Both lines are quoted in al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya, vol. 10, p. 301. Al-Tabrizi comments on the latter: just as one cannot travel east and west in a single journey, honor and lofty rank cannot reside in a man who hoards his wealth; glory is attained only by spending and sacrificing prized possessions.
(3) The Diwan reads al-naʾibat (calamities) instead of al-hadithat (events).
(4) The verses are found in the Diwan, vol. 4, p. 142, within an eight-line elegy for a slave-girl of his who had died.