101 – He said: My father recited to me—and I in turn read it back to him—the verses of Sawadah ibn Zayd ibn ʿAdiyy ibn Zayd:

“I wish the youth that has slipped away could come again—
yet how, when every day the gray increases?

Sudden cares descend upon me unannounced,
and trials that would turn an infant’s hair white.

The black of my locks has been exchanged for white,
and my heart because of it is stricken and sore.

My head is gray, and so are my companions’ heads—
once jet-black, like clustered, midnight grapes.

At that sight my soul falls into sighs of regret,
and sleepless nights grow many.

Friend, if you possess knowledge, then help me;
only the rightly guided can guide the misguided.

Have you heard of a remedy that money can buy—
whether newly found or of ancient stock—

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that would drive the gray from the partings of my hair,
whose beauty once lay in its curling waves?”