This report, with this chain of transmission, is munkar (rejected), and the poetry it contains is feeble. The solitary narration of this Bakr with such a chain and wording is not to be accepted. Allah knows best.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir (1) related—through Abū Zakariyyā al-Ramlī—:
“Yazīd ibn Hārūn told us, from Nūḥ ibn Qays, from Salamah al-Kindī, from al-Aṣbaġ ibn Nubātah, from ʿAlī: A man came to him and said, ‘O Commander of the Believers, I have a need of you which I first raised to Allah before bringing it to you. If you fulfil it I shall praise Allah and thank you; and if you do not, I shall praise Allah and excuse you.’

ʿAlī replied, ‘Write your request upon the ground, for I dislike to see the humiliation of begging upon your face.’

So the man wrote: ‘I am in need.’

ʿAlī said, ‘Bring me a cloak.’ It was brought; the man took it and put it on, after which he recited:

[from al-Basīṭ]
You have clothed me in a cloak whose beauties will one day fade,
yet I shall robe you in garments of gracious praise that never age.
If you attain the excellence of my praise, you attain true honour;
I seek no exchange for the words I have spoken.
Indeed, praise revives a man’s remembrance,
just as rain revives—with its bounty—the plain and the hill.
Do not disdain the passing days, for at Khaybar you shall meet your deeds:
every servant will be requited for what he has done.

ʿAlī said, ‘Bring me the dinars.’ One hundred dinars were brought, and he placed them in the man’s hand.

Al-Aṣbaġ remarked, ‘O Commander of the Believers, a cloak and a hundred dinars?’ He replied, ‘Yes! I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, “Place people according to their ranks,” and this is the rank of this man with me.’

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī narrated—through Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Nabīṭ ibn Sharīṭ, from his father, from his grandfather—that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (2) said:

[from al-Wāfir]
When hearts are enveloped in worries for the people,
and the capacious breast is straitened (3),
When hardships settle, grow familiar, and
calamities come to rest where they belong,
When you see no avenue for the distress to lift,
and the resourceful man’s stratagems avail him not,
Then—while you despair—relief will come to you,
a favour (4) bestowed by the Near, Ever-Responsive One.
Every affliction, when it reaches its utmost limit,
is followed by a deliverance that is close at hand.

Among the verses Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ṣūlī transmitted from the Commander of the Believers ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib is his saying (5):

[from al-Wāfir]
So be patient with the momentous trial,
and treat the pain within you with beautiful patience.