They said, “You have forsaken poetry(1);” I replied, “Out of sheer necessity—the gate of motives and incentives(2) is closed.
The lands are empty(3): no generous patron from whom largesse may be hoped, no handsome one to be loved.
A wonder it is that, though poetry is never bought, it is nevertheless betrayed(4) amid stagnation and even stolen.”

Ibn Khallikān, in his Wafayāt, also records this elegant piece of his verse, in the Basīṭ metre:
A signal from you would suffice us, and the finest return of a greeting on the morning of parting was by a twig of ʿanam;
Until, in her bewilderment, the mantle slipped from her, and the clasp released the cord of her necklace in the dark;
She smiled—and night lit up, so she gathered the scattered pearls in that newly ordered light.

He died in this same year in the region of Balkh and was buried there(5). (May Allah have mercy on him)(6).

al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allah(7) ibn al-Qāsim(8) ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Sulaymān ibn Wahb al-Dabbās, Abū ʿAbd Allah, the poet famed as al-Bāriʿ(9): he studied the canonical readings of the Quran, heard hadith, was well-versed in grammar, lexicography, and belles-lettres, and composed refined poetry. He, too, died this year, having passed the age of eighty. May Allah have mercy on him.

Muḥammad ibn Saʿdūn ibn Marrajā, Abū ʿĀmir al-ʿAbdarī(10) al-Qurashī, the ḥāfiẓ: originally from Mayurqa(11) in the Maghrib. He came to Baghdad and heard(12) hadith there from Ṭirād al-Zaynabī, al-Ḥumaydī, and others. He possessed considerable learning.