KHAYYAM, Omar / FITZGERALD, Edward


Rubàiyat (4th Edition)

I.

 Wake! for the Sun who scatter'd into flight
 The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
 Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
 The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

VII.

 Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
 Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:
 The Bird of Time has but a little way
 To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.

VIII.

 Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
 Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
 The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
 The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

IX.

 Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say:
 Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
 And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
 Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.

XII.

 A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
 A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
 Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
 Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

XIV.

 Look to the blowing Rose about us--"Lo,
 Laughing," she says, "into the world I blow,
 At once the silken tassel of my Purse
 Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."

XV.

 And those who husbanded the Golden grain,
 And those who flung it to the winds like Rain,
 Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
 As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

XVI.

 The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
 Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon,
 Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
 Lighting a little hour or two--was gone.

XIX.

 I sometimes think that never blows so red
 The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
 That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
 Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.

XX.

 And this reviving Herb whose tender Green
 Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean--
 Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
 From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XXI.

 Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
 To-day of past Regret and future Fears:
 To-morrow--Why, To-morrow I may be
 Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

XXIV.

 Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
 Before we too into the Dust descend;
 Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
 Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!

XXVIII.

 With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
 And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
 And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd--
 "I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

XXXI.

 Up from Earth's Center through the Seventh Gate
 I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
 And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road;
 But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.

XXXIII.

 Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn
 In flowing Purple, of their Lord Forlorn;
 Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd
 And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.

XXXV.

 Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
 I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn:
 And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live,
 "Drink!--for, once dead, you never shall return."

XXXVIII.

 And has not such a Story from of Old
 Down Man's successive generations roll'd
 Of such a clod of saturated Earth
 Cast by the Maker into Human mold?

XLVII.

 When You and I behind the Veil are past,
 Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,
 Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
 As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast.

LIII.

 But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor
 Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's unopening Door,
 You gaze to-day, while You are You--how then
 To-morrow, when You shall be You no more?

LXIII.

 Of threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
 One thing at least is certain--This Life flies;
 One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
 The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

LXIV.

 Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
 Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
 Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
 Which to discover we must travel too.

LXVI.

 I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
 Some letter of that After-life to spell:
 And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
 And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell:"

LXVII.

 Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
 And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire
 Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
 So late emerg'd from, shall so soon expire.

LXVIII.

 We are no other than a moving row
 Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
 Round with the Sun-illumin'd Lantern held
 In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

LXIX.

 But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
 Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
 Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
 And one by one back in the Closet lays.

LXXI.

 The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
 Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
 Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
 Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

LXXII.

 And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
 Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
 Lift not your hands to It for help--for It
 As impotently moves as you or I.

LXXIII.

 With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
 And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
 And the first Morning of Creation wrote
 What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

LXXX.

 Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
 Beset the Road I was to wander in,
 Thou wilt not with Predestin'd Evil round
 Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!


LXXXI.

 Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
 And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:
 For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
 Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!

XCIII.

 Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
 Have done my credit in this World much wrong:
 Have drown'd my Glory in a shallow Cup,
 And sold my reputation for a Song.

XCIV.

 Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
 I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
 And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
 My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.

XCVI.

 Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
 That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
 The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
 Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

XCVII.

 Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
 One glimpse--if dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd,
 To which the fainting Traveler might spring,
 As springs the trampled herbage of the field!

XCVIII.

 Would but some winged Angel ere too late
 Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,
 And make the stern Recorder otherwise
 Enregister, or quite obliterate!

C.

 Yon rising Moon that looks for us again--
 How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
 How oft hereafter rising look for us
 Through this same Garden--and for one in vain!