In this same year (1) the Abbasid caliph al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh (2) sent a message to Shaykh Abū l-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, asking him to append to the well-known verses of ʿAdī ibn Zayd whatever poetry might suit them (3), even if the addition should come to ten lines (4). What follows are those very verses (5):

[Metre: al-Khafīf]
O you who gloat and mock at the turns of time—
do you think yourself flawless, secure?
Or do you hold a binding pact with the days?
Rather (6) you are a heedless, deluded soul.
Whom have you seen whom death left immortal (7),
or whose protector could shield him from harm?
Where is Kisrā, king of kings, Abū Sāsān—
and where, before him, is Shāpūr? (8)
The sons of the Yellow, the emperors of Rome—
not even a name of them remains.
And the lord of al-Ḥaḍr, when he built it, when
the revenues of the Tigris and the Khābūr were brought to him:
He raised it stone on stone and overlaid it with plaster,
so birds made their nests upon its heights.
The hands of fate spared him not; his kingdom was removed (9),
and now his gate stands abandoned.
Recall (10) the master of al-Khawarnaq: one day he looked out,
and reflection led him aright (11).
His estate delighted him (12), the vastness of what he possessed,
with the sea before him and the Sadīr plain.
Then his heart took heed, and he said (13),
“What bliss does any living soul enjoy that is not bound for death?”
After luxury (14), dominion, and slave-girls (15),
the graves in that very place received them all.