Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

From Omar Khayyám

Edward Fitzgerald (1809–1883)

A BOOK of Verses underneath the Bough,

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness—

O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Some for the Glories of This World; and some

Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;

Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,

Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

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.’

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.

Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai

Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,

How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp

Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep

The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:

And Bahram, that great Hunter—the wild Ass

Stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his sleep.

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.

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!

Ah, my Belovèd, fill the Cup that clears

TO-DAY of past Regrets and Future Fears:

To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow I may be

Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n thousand Years.

For some we loved, the loveliest and the best

That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,

Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,

And one by one crept 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 unto dust, and under Dust to lie,

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!

Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,

And wash my Body whence the Life has died,

And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,

By some not unfrequented Garden-side!…

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!

And when like her, O Sáki, you shall pass

Among the Guests star-scatter’d on the Grass,

And in your joyous errand reach the spot

Where I made One—turn down an empty Glass!