Excerpt from 'Maqtal al-Husayn':
An orphan girl with being orphaned startled
Her heart is filled with pain,
Like a bird by an eagle chased,
One whose nest is assaulted.
A cry she let out when the horsemen assaulted
Her, though orphaned, so she now is more startled,
And to the one lying on the burning sands she went
Pouring over him from her eyes a river she wept.
She fell upon al-Husayn's body so he kept
To his chest taking her between a right and a left.
She seeks refuge with him, having lost her headscarf,
And it was hard for him to see her without it;
He would not have left their whips cause her to seek help
With her father's body when, from him,
She was forcibly removed.
To Allah do I complain about the patience of Zainab the pure
How many a tribulation did she have to endure?
From the calamities and from the pain
From pains, from which death is welcome, she did suffer.
She witnessed the men of dignity from her people of honour
On the ground slaughtered in a row without cover:
The winds on their corpses freely blow,
The beasts over their bodies come and go.
Her people's chief lying slain she saw,
To them did the folks’ swords deal many a blow.
She saw heads on the lances carried
And corpses with only sands shrouded.
She saw an infant with an arrow waned
And children after their father orphaned.
She saw the enemies gleeful, with their misery pleased,
She saw how with her brother they dealt every foul deed.