Ibn Isḥāq said:

ʿAmr b. al-Ḥārith b. Muḍāḍ also recited, mourning Banū Bakr and Ghubshān, the clans who succeeded them in Mecca:

[al-Basīṭ]
O people, travel on—lest some hindrance bind you
And one morning you awake unable to depart.
Spur your mounts and slacken their reins
Before death overtakes you; discharge what must be done.
We were once a folk as you are now, but Time transformed us;
What we have become, in the end you too shall be.

Ibn Hishām comments: This is the portion whose wording he deemed sound. Some scholars of poetry informed me that these verses are the earliest lines ever uttered in Arabic and that they were found engraved on a stone in Yemen, with no author named.

Al-Suhaylī adds that further companion-verses exist and relates with them an astonishing tale and eloquent citations.

He continues: Abū al-Walīd al-Azraqī, in his book The Virtues of Mecca, appended to the verses attributed to ʿAmr b. al-Ḥārith b. Muḍāḍ the following:

[al-Basīṭ]
Time turned upon us, then destroyed us,
For tyranny dwelt among us; other men surpassed us.
Inquire into the deeds of those who came before you,
For a path is clarified when its easy stretch is known.
In bygone days we were the kings of humankind before you,
Dwelling in the abode within God’s inviolable Sanctuary.