"I am weary of life's burden: well a man may weary be After eighty years, and this much now is manifest to me: Death is like a night-blind camel stumbling on:--the smitten die But the others age and wax in weakness whom he passes by. He that often deals with folk in unkind fashion, underneath They will trample him and make him feel the sharpness of their teeth. He that hath enough and over and is niggard with his pelf Will be hated of his people and left free to praise himself. He alone who with fair actions ever fortifies his fame Wins it fully: blame will find him out unless he shrinks from blame. He that for his cistern's guarding trusts not in his own stout arm Sees it ruined: he must harm his foe or he must suffer harm. He that fears the bridge of Death across it finally is driven, Though he span as with a ladder all the space 'twixt earth and heaven. He that will not take the lance's butt-end while he has the chance Must thereafter be contented with the spike-end of the lance. He that keeps his word is blamed not; he whose heart repaireth straight To the sanctuary of duty never needs to hesitate. He that hies abroad to strangers doth account his friends his foes; He that honours not himself lacks honour wheresoe'er he goes. Be a man's true nature what it will, that nature is revealed To his neighbours, let him fancy as he may that 'tis concealed."[241] The ripe sententious wisdom and moral earnestness of Zuhayr's poetry are in keeping with what has been said above concerning his religious ideas and, from another point of view, with the tradition that he used to compose a _qaṣída_ in four months, correct it for four months, submit it to the poets of his acquaintance during a like period, and not make it public until a year had expired. Of his life there is little to tell. Probably he died before Islam, though it is related that when he was a centenarian he met the Prophet, who cried out on seeing him, "O God, preserve me from his demon!"[242] The poetical gifts which he inherited from his uncle Basháma he bequeathed to his son Ka‘b, author of the famous ode, _Bánat Su‘ád_. [Sidenote: Labíd.] Labíd b. Rabí‘a, of the Banú ‘Ámir b. Ṣa‘ṣa‘a, was born in the latter half of the sixth century, and is said to have died soon after Mu‘áwiya's accession to the Caliphate, which took place in A.D. 661. He is thus the youngest of the Seven Poets. On accepting Islam he abjured poetry, saying, "God has given me the Koran in exchange for it." Like Zuhayr, he had, even in his heathen days, a strong vein of religious feeling, as is shown by many passages in his Díwán.