على أني سأنشد عند بيعي أضاعوني وأي فتى أضاعوا
At the time of my sale I shall recite: “They wasted me—and what a capable man they wasted!”
The closing words aḍāʿūnī wa-ayyi fatan aḍāʿū form a famous hemistich. Its original continuation speaks of usefulness “on a day of hard combat and in guarding a frontier.”
The later speaker uses this well-known lament to portray himself as undervalued. Because the earlier words are consciously woven into a new poem, it illustrates incorporation of a poetic hemistich.