50 quatrains. M. Kerney.
In: Works of Edward FitzGerald translator of Omar Khayyam. Reprinted from the original impressions with some corrections derived from his own annotated copies in two volumes. London : New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ; Quaritch, 1887.
Out from our inn, one morn, a voice came roaring – “Up!
Sots, scamps, and madmen! quit your heavy snoring! Up!
Come pour we out a measure full of wine, and drink!
Ere yet the measure’s brimmed for us they ‘re pouring up!”
Darling, ere sorrow thy nightly couch enfold again,
Bid wine be brought, red sparkling as of old, again!
-And Thou, weak fool! think not that thou art gold:
When buried, none will dig thee up from the mould again!
This old inn call’d the world, that man shelters his head in,
(Pied curtains of Dawn and of Dusk o’er it spreading:) –
‘T is the banqueting-hall many Jamshíds have quitted,
The couch many Bahráms have found their last bed in!
Here, where Bahrám oft brimmed his glorious chalice,
Deers breed and lions sleep in the ruined palace; –
Like the wild ass he lassoed, the great Hunter
Lies in the snare of Death’s wild Huntsman callous!
The verdure that yon rivulet’s bank arraying is,
“The down on an angel’s lip,” in homely saying, is –
O tread not thereon disdainfully! – it springet
From the dust of some tulip-cheek that there decaying is!
Let not the morrow make thee, friend, down-hearted!
Draw profit of the day yet undeparted:
We ‘ll join, when we to-morrow leave this mansion,
The band seven thousand years ago that started!
The wheel of Heaven thy death and mine is bringing, friend’.
Over our lives a deadly spell ‘t is flinging, friend!
Come, sit upon this turf, for little time is left
Ere fresher turf shall from our dust be springing, friend!
Myriad minds a-busy sects and creeds to learn,
The Doubtful from the Sure all puzzled to discern:
Suddenly from the Dark the crier raised a cry –
“Not this, nor that, ye fools! the path that ye must turn!”
The learned, the cream of mankind, who have driven
Intellect’s chariot over the heights of heaven –
Void and o’erturned, like that blue sky they trace,
Are dazed, when they to measure Thee have striven!
Forth, like a hawk, from Mystery’s world I fly,
Seeking escape to win from the Low to the High:
Arriving, – when none I find who the secret knows,
Out through the door I go that I entered by!
This life is but three days’ space, and it speeds apace,
Like wind that sweeps away o’er the desert’s face:
So long as it lasts, two days ne’er trouble my mind,
-The day undawned, and the day that has run its race.
Lo! the dawn breaks, and the curtain of night is torn
Up! swallow thy morning cup – Why seem to mourn?
Drink wine, my heart! for the dawns will come and come
Still facing to us when our faces to earthward turn!
Sprung from the Four, and the Seven! I see that never
The Four and the Seven respond to thy brain’s endeavour –
Drink wine! for I tell thee, four times o’er and more,
Return there is none! – Once gone, thou art gone for ever!
Thy body ‘s a tent, where the Soul, like a King in quest
Of the goal of Nought, is a momentary guest; –
He arises; Death’s farrásh uproots the tent,
And the King moves on to another stage to rest.
Up! smooth-faced boy, the daybreak shines for thee:
Brimm’d with red wine let the crystal goblet be!
For this hour is lent thee in the House of Dust: –
Another thou may’st seek, but ne’er shalt see!
A double-sized beaker to measure my wine I’ll take;
Two doses to fill up my settled design I’ll take;
With the first, I’ll divorce me from Faith and from Reason quite,
With the next, a new bride in the Child of the Vine I’ll take!
Those who were paragons of Worth and Ken,
Whose greatness torchlike lights their fellow men,
Out of this night profound no path have traced for us; –
They ‘ve babbled dreams, then fall’n to sleep again!
This vault of Heaven at which we gaze astounded,
May by a painted lantern be expounded:
The light ‘s the Sun, the lantern is the World,
And We the figures whirling dazed around it!
But puppets are we in Fate’s puppet-show –
No figure of speech is this, but in truth ‘t is so!
On the draughtboard of Life we are shuffled to and fro.
Then one by one to the box of Nothing go!
Since life has, love! no true reality,
Why let its coil of cares a trouble be?
Yield thee to Fate, whatever of pain it bring:
The Pen will never unwrite its writ for thee!
In the tavern, better with Thee my soul I share
Than in the mosque, without Thee, uttering prayer –
O Thou, the First and Last of all that is!
Or doom Thou me to burn, or choose to spare.
When the Supreme my body made of clay,
He well foreknew the part that I should play:
Not without His ordainment have I sinned!
Why would He then I burn at Judgment-day?
Life fleets – Why care we then be it sweet or bitter?
At Balkh or at Naishápúr that the soul shall flitter?
Drink wine! for when we are gone, the Moon shall ever
Continue to wax and wane, to pale and slitter!
The wayward caprices my life that have tinted
All spring from the mould on my Being imprinted:
Nought else and nought better my nature could be –
I am as I came from the crucible minted!
Woe! that life’s work should be so vain and hollow:
Sin in each breath and in the food we swallow!
Black is my face that what was Bid, undone is:
-If done the Unbidden, ah! what then must follow?
To a potter’s shop, yestreen, I did repair;
Two thousand dumb or chattering pots were there.
All turned to me, and asked with speech distinct:
“Who is ‘t that makes, that buys, that sells our ware?”
When Fate, at her foot, a broken wreck shall fling me,
And when Fate’s hand, a poor plucked fowl shall wring me;
Beware, of my clay, aught else than a bowl to make,
That the scent of the wine new life in time may bring me!
Let wine, gay comrades, be the food I ‘m fed upon; —
These amber cheeks its ruby light be shed upon!
Wash me in ‘t, when I die; — and let the trees
Of my vineyard yield the bier that I lie dead upon!
Since the Moon and the Star of Eve first shone on high,
Naught has been known with ruby Wine could vie:
Strange, that the vintners should in traffic deal!
Better than what they sell, what could they buy?
Ah! that young Life should close its volume bright away!
Mirth’s springtime green, that it should pass from sight away!
Ah! for the Bird of Joy whose name is Youth:
We know not when she came, nor when took flight away!
If I like God o’er Heaven’s high fate could reign,
I ‘d sweep away the present Heaven’s domain,
And from its ruins such a new one build
That an honest heart its wish could aye attain!
I would God were this whole world’s scheme renewing,
— And now! at once! that I might see it doing!
That either from His roll my name were cancelled,
Or luckier days for me from Heaven accruing!
Since none can be our surety for to-morrow,
Sweeten, my love, thy heart to-day from sorrow :
Drink wine, fair Moon, in wine-light, for the moon
Will come again, and miss us, many a morrow!
See how the zephyr tears the scarf of the rose away;
The rose’s beauty charms the bulbul’s woes away!
Go, sit in the shade of the rose, for every rose
That springs from the earth, again to earth soon goes away!
The moon cleaves the skirt of the night – then, oh! drink Wine!
For never again will moment like this be thine.
Be gay! and remember that many and many a moon
On the surface of earth again and again will shine!
Appoint ye a tryst, happy comrades, anon!
And when – as your revel in gladness comes on –
The Saki takes goblet in hand, oh! remember,
And bless, while you drink, the poor fellow that ‘s gone!
Thou! chosen one from earth’s full muster-roll to me!
Dearer than my two eyes, than even my soul to me!
-Though nothing than life more precious we esteem,
Yet dearer art thou, my love, a hundred-fold to me!
Nothing but pain and wretchedness we earn in
This world that for a moment we sojourn in:
We go! – no problem solved alas! discerning;
Myriad regrets within our bosoms burning!
O master! grant us only this, we prithee:
Preach not! but dumbly guide to bliss, we prithee!
“We walk not straight?” Nay, it is thou who squintest!
Go, heal thy eight, and leave us in peace, we prithee:
Hither! come hither, love! my heart doth need thee;
Come, and expound a riddle I will read thee.
The earthen jar bring too, – and let us drink, love!
Ere, turned to clay, to earthenware they knead thee!
Wash me when dead in the juice of the vine, dear friends!
Let your funeral service be drinking and wine, dear friends!
And if you would meet me again when the Doomsday comes,
Search the dust of the tavern, and sift from it mine, dear friends!
Howe’er with beauty’s hue and bloom endow’d I be,
Of tulip-cheek and cypress-form though proud I be;
Yet know I not why the Limner chose that, here, in this
Mint-house of clay, amid the painted crowd I be!
Unworthy of Hell, unfit for Heaven, I be –
God knows what clay He used when He moulded me!
Foul as a punk, ungodly as a monk,
No faith, no world, no hope of Heaven I see!
Wicked, men call me ever; yet blameless I!
Think how it is, ye Saints! – My life, ye cry,
Breaks all Heaven’s laws – Good lack! I have no sin,
That needs reproach, save wenching and drink! – then, why?
So long as thy frame of flesh and of bone shall be,
Stir not one step outside Fate’s hostelry; –
Bow to no foe thy neck, were ‘t Rustum’s self,
Take from no friend a gift, though Hatim he!
Oh! Thou hast shattered to bits my jar of wine, my Lord!
Thou hast shut me out from the gladness that was mine, my Lord!
Thou hast spilt and scattered my wine upon the clay
O dust in my mouth! if the drunkness be not Thine, my Lord!
In the Springtime, biding with one who is houri-fair,
And a flask of wine, if ‘t is to be had – somewhere
On the tillage’s grassy skirt – Alack! though most
May think it a sin, I feel that my heaven is there!
A flask of red wine, and a volume of song, together;
Half a loaf, – just enough the ravage of Want to tether:
Such is my wish – then, thou in the waste with me!
Oh! sweeter were this than a monarch’s crown and feather!
He who doth here below but half a loaf possess,
Who for his own can claim some sheltering nook’s recess,
He who to none is either lord or thrall –
Go! tell him he enjoys the world’s full happiness!
I know not if He who kneaded my clay to man
Belong to the host of Heaven or the Hellish’ clan; –
A life mid the meadows, with Woman, and Music, and Wine,
Heaven’s cash is to me: – let Heaven’s credit thy fancy trepan!