 The Rubaiyat of Omar Qayyam, by Omar Qayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, for the volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Rubaiyat of Omar Qayyam, by Omar Qayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. Awake! For mourning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight. And lo! The hunter of the east has caught the sultan's turret in a noose of light. Dreaming when dawn's left hand was in the sky, I heard a voice within the tavern cry. Awake, my little ones, and fill the cup before life's liquor in its cup be dry. And as the cock-crew, those who stood before the tavern, shouted, Open then the door, You know how little while we have to stay, And once departed may return no more. Now the new year reviving old desires, The thoughtful soul to solitude retires, Where the white hand of Moses on the bow puts out, And Jesus from the grounds aspires. Irem indeed has gone with all its rose, And Jime should seven-ring it cup where no one knows, But still the vine her ancient ruby yields, And still a garden by the water blows. And David's lips are locked, but in divine, High piping pelevy with wine, wine, wine, red wine, The nightingale cries to the rose, That yellow cheek of hers ting carnodyne. Come fill the cup, and in the fire of spring The winter garment of repentance fling, The bird of time has bought a little way to fly, And lo! The bird is on the wing. And look! A thousand blossoms with the day woke, And a thousand scattered into clay, And this first summer month that brings the rose Shall take Jime, Shid, and Caicobat away. But come with old Chaim, And leave the lot of Caicobat and Kokroshu forgot, Let Rustam lay about him as he will, Or heighten Tyre, Christ supper, heed them not. With me along some strip of herbid strone That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of slave and sultan scarce is known, And pity sultan Mahmood on his throne. Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bow, A flask of wine, a book of verse, And thou beside me singing in the wilderness, And wilderness as paradise are now. How sweet is mortal sovereignty, thinks some, Others, how blessed the paradise to come! Ah! Take the cash in hand, and wave the rest, O the brave music of a distant drum! Look to the rose that blows about us, Low, laughing, she says, into the world I blow, At once the silken tassel of my purse tear, And its treasure on the garden throw. The worldly hopemen set their hearts upon, Turns ashes, or it prospers, and a none like Snow upon the desert's dusty face, Lighting a little hour or two, is gone. And those who husbanded the golden grain, And those who flung it to the winds like rain, Alike to know such aryate earth are turned as, Buried once, men want a cup again. Think in this battered cavern's sari, Whose doorways are alternate night and day, How sultan after sultan with his pomp, A bode his hour or two, and went his way. They say the lion and the lizard keep, The courts were gyms should gloried and drank deep, And Bahram, that great hunter, The wild ass, stamps o'er his head, And he lies fast asleep. I sometimes think that never blow so red The roses were some buried Caesar-blood, That every hyacinth the garden wears, Dropped in its lap from some once-lovely head. And this delightful herb whose tender green Fledges the river's lip on which we lean, Ah, lean upon it lightly, For who knows from what once-lovely lip it springs unseen? Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears, To day of past regret and future fears, To-morrow, my to-morrow, I may be myself With yesterday's seven thousand years. Lo, some we loved, the loveliest and the best, That time and fate of all their vintage pressed, Have drunk their cup around, or two before, And one by one kept silently to rest. And we that now make merry in the room they left, And summer dresses in new bloom, Ourselves must we beneath the couch of earth descend, Ourselves to make a couch, for whom? 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, Sun's wine, sun's song, sun's singer, and sun's end. A like for those who for today prepare, And those that after a to-morrow stare, A moison from the tower of darkness cries, Fools, your reward is neither here nor there. Why all the saints and sages who disgust Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust Like foolish prophets forth, Their words to score and are scattered, And their mouths are stopped with dust? Oh, come with old Chaim, And leave the wise to talk, One thing is certain that life flies, One thing is certain and the rest is lies, The flower that once has blown, forever dies. Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent Doctor and saint, And heard great argument about it and about, But evermore came out by the same door as in I went. With them the seed of wisdom did I sow, And with my own hand laboured it to grow, And this was all the harvest that I reaped. I came like water, and like wind I go. Into this universe and why not knowing, Nor went like water willy-nilly flowing, And out of it as wind along the waist I know not wither, willy-nilly blowing. What without asking hither hurried went, And without asking wither hurried hence, Another and another cup to drown The memory of this impotence. Up from earth's centre through the seventh gate I rose, And on the throne of Saturn's sate, And many knots unraveled by the road, But not the knot of human death and fate. There was a door to which I found no key, There was a veil past which I could not see, Some little talk awhile of me and thee there seemed, And then no more of thee and me. Then to the rolling heaven itself I cried, Asking what lamp had destiny to guide Her little children stumbling in the dark, And a blind understanding heaven replied. Then to this earthen bowl did I adjourn My lip the secret well of life to learn, And lip to lip it murmured, While you live, drink, for once dead you never shall return. I think the vessel that with fugitive articulation answered once did live, And Mary make, and the cold lip I kissed, How many kisses might it take, and give. For in the marketplace one dusk of day I watched the potter thumping his wet clay, And with its all obliterated tongue it murmured, Gently, brother, gently pray. Ah, fill the cup, What boots it to repeat how time is slipping Underneath our feet, Unborn to-morrow and dead yesterday, Why fret about them if to-day be sweet. One moment in annihilation's waste, One moment of the well of life to taste, The stars are setting and the caravan starts For the dawn of nothing, O make haste. How long, how long an infinite pursuit Of this and that endeavor in dispute, Better be Mary with a fruitful grape Than sadden after none or bitter fruit. You know, my friends, How long since in my house for a new marriage I did make carouse, Divorce stole barren reason from my bed, And took the daughter of the vine to spouse. For is and is not the withrule and line, And up and down without I could define, I yet in all I only cared to know Was never deep in anything but wine. And lately by the tavern-door-a-gape Came stealing through the dusk in angel's shape, Bearing a vessel on his shoulder, and, he bid me taste of it, and was, the grape. The grape that can with logic absolute The two-and-seventy-jarring sex confute, The subtle alchemist that in a trice life's leaden metal into gold transmute. The mighty Mahmud, the victorious lord, That all the misbelieving and black Horde of fears and sorrows that infest the soul, Scatters and slays with its enchanted sword. But leave the wise to wrangle, And with me the quarrel of the universe let be, And in some corner of the hubbub couched, Make game of that which makes as much of thee. For in and out above, about below, Tis nothing but a magic shadow-show, Played in a box whose candle is the sun, Round which we phantom figures come and go. And if the wine you drink, the lip you press, End in nothing, all things end in yes, Then fancy while thou art, thou art but what thou shalt be, Nothing, thou shalt not be less. While the rose blows along the river brink, With old cayam the ruby vintage drink, And when the angel with its darker drought draws up to thee, Take that, and do not shrink. Tis all a checkerboard of nights and days, Where destiny with men for pieces plays, Hither and thither moves and mates and slays, And one by one back in the closet lays. The ball no question makes of eyes and nose, But writer left his strikes the player goes, And he that tossed thee down into the field, He knows about it all, he knows, he knows. The moving finger writes, And having writ moves on, Nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it. And that inverted ball we call the sky, Where under crawling cooped we live and die, Lift not thy hands to it for help, For it rolls impotently on as thou or I. With earth's first clay they did the last man's need, And then of the last harvest sowed the seed, Yea, the first morning of creation wrote, What the last dawn of reckoning shall read. I tell thee this, when starting from the goal, Over the shoulder of this flaming foal, Of heaven, parwin and mosh, Tra they flung in my predestined plot Of dust and soul. The vine had struck a fibre, Which about it clings my being, But the Sufi flout of my base metal May be filed a key That shall unlock the door he hails without. And this I know, whether the one true light Kindle to love, Or wrath consume me quite, One glimpse of it within the tavern cot, Better than in the temple lost outright. O thou who didst with pitfall and with gin The set the road I was to wander in, Thou wilt not with predestination round and mesh me, And impute my fall to sin? O thou who man of baser earth didst make, And who with Eden didst devise the snake, For all the sin were with the face of man as blackened, Man's forgiveness give and take. Kuzanama, Book of Potts Listen again, one evening at the close of Ramazan At the better moon arose, And that old potter's shop I stood alone With the clay population round and rose, And strange to tell among the earthen lot Some could articulate while others not, And suddenly one more impatient cried, Who is the potter pray, and who the pot? Then said another, surely not in vain My substance from the common earth was tain, That he who subtly wrought me into shape Should stant me back to the common earth again. Another said, Why near a peevish boy would break the bowl From which he drank in joy, Shall he that made the vessel in pure love and fancy In an after-age destroy? None answered this, But after silence spake a vessel Of a more ungainly make, They sneered me for leaning all awry. What did the hand then of the potter shake? Said one, folks of a surly tap to tell And dob his visage with the smoke of hell They talk of some strict testing of us, Pish, he's a good fellow, and will all be well. Then said another with a long-drawn sigh, My clay with long oblivion has gone dry, But fill me with the old familiar juice, Me thinks I might recover, by and by. So all the vessels one by one were speaking, One spied the little crescent all were seeking, And then they jogged each other, Brother, brother, hark to the potter's shoulder not to creaking. Ah, would the great my fading life provide, And wash my body once the life has died, And in a winding sheet of vine leaf wrapped, So bury me by some sweet garden-side, That he and my buried ashes such a snare Of perfume shall fling up into the air, As not a true believer passing by, But shall be overtaken unaware. Indeed, the idols I have loved so long, Have done my credit in men's eye much wrong, Have drowned my honour in a shallow cup, And sold my reputation for a song. Indeed, indeed, repentance off before I swore, But was I sober when I swore? And then and then came spring and rose in hand, My thread-beer penitence a piece's tore. And much as wine has played the infidel, And robbed me of my robe of honour, Well, I often wonder what the vintners buy, One half so precious as the goods they sell. Alas, that spring should vanish with the rose, That youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close, The nightingale that in the branches sang, Ah, wence, and wither flown again! Who knows? Ah, love, could thou and I with fate conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits, And then remold it near to the heart's desire? Ah, moon of my delight, who knows no wane, The moon of heaven is rising once again, How off-tier after rising shall she look Through this same garden after me in vain. And when my selfless shining foot shall pass Among the guests star-scattered on the grass, And in thy joyous air in reach the spot where I made one, Turn down an empty glass. Tomom should, it is completed. End of the Rubayat of Omar Qayam, By Omar Qayam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald.