A lofty concern kept soaring in your wakeful heart;
by it you ascended the highest summits, rung after rung.
Throughout the earth, from East to farthest West,
every herald—whether in eloquent Arabic or in a foreign tongue—cries out:
“Commander of the Believers, you have wronged me:
you took my gold dinar but did not take my silver dirham;
you never stretched a hand toward anyone who was not a criminal,
nor shed, in tyranny, even a cupping-glass of blood.
If the Muslims were able, they would divide their lives
and grant you half their years, without the least regret.
So live on by that, for as long as any rider hastens on pilgrimage for Allah, (1)
pressing forward to circle the Station and the well of Zamzam.
Reap, then, the profit of this incomparable bargain,
and hold it great—hold it great, and yet again, hold it truly great. (2)

He said: ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz turned to me and said, “You will be questioned about this on the Day of Resurrection.”

Thereafter al-Ahwaṣ sought his permission and recited another poem for him, and he told him, “You will be questioned about this on the Day of Resurrection.” (3)

Then Nuṣayb requested leave, but he did not grant it. Instead, he ordered that each of them be given one hundred and fifty dirhams, and he dispatched Nuṣayb to the meadow of Dābiq. (4)

Later, Kutheyyir ʿAzzah visited Yazīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik; he praised him with a series of odes, and Yazīd gave him seven hundred dinars.

al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār said: “Kutheyyir ʿAzzah was a Shīʿī khashabī (one of the ‘men of the wooden staves’), (5) who believed in the rajʿa (return) and in transmigration (tanāsukh), adducing as proof the words of the Exalted: ‘In whatever form He willed, He composed you’ (Qur’an 82:8). (6)”

Mūsā ibn ʿUqba said: “Kutheyyir ʿAzzah was struck with terror one night in a dream; when morning came he began praising the family of al-Zubayr and composing elegies for ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr—though he had earlier held a poor opinion of him:

Beneath the shame of the wide plain there lies one who—
had he remained there until the crags themselves departed—
we should have driven our herds about in perfect security;
and whoever fears the gravest threats finds that sudden calamities hold no dread.”