(continuation of Hubayrah ibn Abī Wahb’s poem)
14 Then at nightfall we moved off, like a chill rain-cloud gathering,
While the severed heads of Banī Najjār were left there, weeping.

15 Their skulls in the clash looked like splintered shards
Of mottled eggshells flung from ostrich nests by the searing heat,

16 Or bitter colocynth fruit the wind has shaken
From a withered branch, flung back and forth by its gusts.

17 We lavish our wealth freely, without reckoning,
And we thrust our lances sideways into the horses’ eye-sockets.

18 On the night when the butcher warms himself by the offal,
The herald reserves the choicest cuts for the wealthy guests.

19 And on a Jumādā night, frost-ridden and raw,
A scabrous, Jumādiyyah night that has loosed its captive blasts,

20 No dog barked in it save a single, faint yelp,
And no serpents stole through its darkness.

21 I kindled there, for the destitute, a devouring blaze—
Like lightning, its corners flaring—which I kept alight.

22 ʿAmr bestowed that largesse on me, and his father before him;
His sire had rivalled others by doubling every gift.

23 They used to compete with the rain-bringing stars themselves,
And never did their endeavors sink beneath the highest crest.

Ibn Isḥāq said (1): Ḥassān ibn Thābit—may Allah be pleased with him—answered him, saying—
Ibn Hishām adds: The verses are also related from Kaʿb ibn Mālik and from others. I say: the attribution reported by Ibn Isḥāq is the better known and more widely transmitted, and Allah knows best:

(from the baṣīṭ metre)
1 In folly you drove Kinānah, in your ignorance,
Toward the Messenger; yet the armies of Allah will disgrace it.

2 You herded it, exposed, to the pools of death;
The Fire is its tryst, and slaughter will meet it there.

3 You mustered them, a motley rabble without pedigree—
Leaders of unbelief, misled by their own idols.

4 Why did you not take heed when Allah’s cavalry
Struck down the people of the well and those we cast within it?

5 How many a captive have we released without ransom,
And how many a forelock have we shorn, whose owners became our vassals!

Ibn Isḥāq said (2): Kaʿb ibn Mālik likewise composed verses in reply to Hubayrah ibn Abī Wahb al-Makhzūmī:

(from the ṭawīl metre)
1 Has any word reached Ghassān about us? Between them and us
Lies a gaping stretch of land whose travel is wearisome:

2 Deserts and high ridges whose rising dust,
Seen from afar, looks like a dead, scattered cloud.

3 Massive she-camels linger there, burdened and panting,
And where the scant rains of the years do fall, the land turns lush.

4 There lie the carcasses of the exhausted, their rib-cages gleaming
Like merchants’ bleached linen spread out for sale.

5 Wild onagers and gazelles cross it in turn,
And white ostrich eggs split open beneath the baking heat.

6 We battle for our faith in every noble coat of mail,
Keen-edged, its helmets flashing bright.

7 And with every silent blade, hard-tempered in stone,
Which, when unsheathed, gleams like a channel brimming with water.