Should a young man set the states of his soul aright,
it will speed his journey to the prize of every wish; (1)
and if you see that soul directing all his words with precision,
it is thereby made the stronger to shoulder lofty aims; (2)
but when the condition of the one to whom it once belonged is laid bare,
in his grave, amid decay, it deserts him—deserts him. (3)

Abu al-ʿAbbas Aḥmad ibn Masʿūd ibn Muḥammad al-Qurṭubī al-Khazrajī

He was an authority in Qur’an exegesis, jurisprudence, arithmetic, the science of inheritance, grammar, philology, metrics, and medicine. He produced fine works and elegant verse, among which is:

[of the wāfir metre]
In cheeks there dwells what blooms within the meadow,
yet the lustre of their blossoms holds a wondrous secret;
still more amazing—and cause for marvel—is that I
behold an entire garden borne upon a single twig. (5)

Abu al-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl ibn Yarnaqsh al-Sinjārī, client of its lord ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī ibn Mawdūd.

He was a soldier of handsome appearance, graceful in versification, widely cultured. Of his poetry is the piece he sent to al-Ashraf Mūsā ibn al-ʿĀdil, consoling him for a brother named Yūsuf:

[of the ṭawīl metre]
The tears of high virtue and nobility stream unchecked, (7)
and the courtyard of glory is a barren waste for your loss;
Generosity and magnanimity were laid to rest in the grave
the very morning Yūsuf was placed within it.
A youth whose soul was snatched by death’s own hand—
though he was wont to snatch souls with the flash of swords.
The nights of fate gave him to drink the cup of demise,
a draught he was well known to mete out in battle.
Alas, if only sorrow could avail the dead;
woe upon woe, if lamentation could but profit!
My soul had been steadfast before calamities,
yet it grows weak beneath the burden of this affliction.

Abu al-Faḍl Ilyās ibn Jāmiʿ ibn ʿAlī al-Arbalī.