He later held sole charge of the Nizāmiyya for many years, devoting himself entirely to it (1). He was learned, devout, and upright, and among the verses he recited are the following (2):

[in the kāmil metre]
The Twin Guardians—both of them—bore witness to his plight,
and the full moon, on the night of its perfection, kept sleepless vigil.

Love-sick: whenever darkness enfolds the night,
the fire of longing blazes within his breast and heart.

Then tears flow from his eyelids down his cheeks
like a torrent streaming from the heights (3).

For yearning after the one who wasted him away I have never seen
a lover whose body was so spent by absence.

Would that the one whose enchanting eyes exhausted him
might, before death, be numbered among those who visit him once again.

Abū Ṭālib Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī al-Baʿqūbī (4), the Shāfiʿī jurist, was one of the muʿīds—assistant lecturers (5)—in Baghdad (6). He was an elderly man with a handsome white beard and a pleasant face, and he administered certain awqāf (religious endowments). Among the lines he quoted from a distinguished poet are:

[in the wāfir metre]
To shoulder the mountains of Tihāmah and Uḥud,
and to bail the sea’s water with a small bucket,

to haul great rocks bare-backed—
all of that is easier than keeping company with a bore (7).

He also quoted—these, too, he himself recited—for another poet (8):

When a man has lived
fifty years (9) and still does not incline to piety,

disgraceful deeds encircle him, saying:
‘You have joined our ranks; stay as you are, do not depart’ (10).

And whenever Satan sees the brightness of his face while he yet lives,
he greets him, saying: ‘May I be ransomed for one who will never succeed.’