Among Ḥayṣa Bayṣa’s choicest poems is the following (1) – in the metre al-munsariḥ:
A man’s safety lasts but a single, astonishing moment;
and every creature has a cause that brings about its doom.
He flees while calamities pursue him;
he flees from them, yet toward them is his very flight.
How can anyone, through life’s constant twists and turns,
hope to remain unharmed when destruction is woven into living itself?
Among his verses as well is this piece (2) – in the metre al-sarīʿ:
Do not meet Time in careless heedlessness,
for the death of the living is inescapable. (3)
Let not long existence beguile you,
so that you fancy length of days to be immortality. (4)
Whatever has an end, its end draws near –
how close the cradle lies to the grave.
Close to this in meaning is what the author of al-ʿIqd, Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Rabbih al-Andalusī (5), says in his ʿIqd (6):
Indeed, the world is but the passing gleam on a leafy thicket:
when one side of it turns green, the other side withers.
Time and our hopes are nothing but disasters that befall us,
and pleasures are merely misfortunes in disguise.
So let not your eyes darken with tears over one who has left it,
for you yourself are leaving.
Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī (7) records this Ḥayṣa Bayṣa in his Dhayl (8), praises him, and audited with him his dīwān and his letters.
The judge Ibn Khallikān (9) likewise commended his correspondence, saying, “He was marked by haughtiness and pride (10), and he never spoke except in exceedingly rarefied diction.”