My favorite verses of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat
(A bit long, but worth ;) )
In the translation by Richard Le Gallienne from 1897. Full text here.
Awake! my soul, and haste betimes to drink,
This sun that rises all too soon shall sink,—
Come, come, O vintner, ope thy drowsy door!
We die of thirst upon the fountain's brink.
…
The wine-cup is the little silver well
Where Truth, if Truth there be, doth ever dwell;
Death too is there,—and Death who would not seek?—
And Love that in itself is Heaven and Hell.
…
Drunkards! so be it—yet, if all were wise,
All would be drunk like us, with dreaming eyes:
Poor sober world, so doleful all the day,
Leave mosque and mart, and join our Paradise.
There are no sorrows wine cannot allay,
There are no sins wine cannot wash away,
There are no riddles wine knows not to read,
There are no debts wine is too poor to pay.
Would you forget a woman, drink red wine;
Would you remember her, then drink red wine!
Is your heart breaking just to see her face?
Gaze deep within this mirror of red wine.
…
Within the tavern each man is a king,
Wine is the slave that brings him—anything;
O friend, be wise in time and join our band,
Drink and forget, and laugh and dance and sing.
…
Wine is the tender friend of suicides,
You drown so softly in its gentle tides;
You know not you are dying, yet you die;
And love with rose-leaves all the ruin hides.
Once in the tavern you have reached the end,
No more to fear from enemy—or friend;
No more to hope, no more to do or say,
Nothing to pray for—nothing to pretend.
…
Think not that I have never tried your way
To heaven, you who pray and fast and pray :
Once I denied myself both love and wine—
Yea, wine and love—for a whole summer day.
I cannot help it—were it in my power,
I would forsake my sins this very hour,
Forsake the Rose, and bid the Vine good-bye,
Kiss my last kiss—if it were in my power.
O good old friends, what is it I have said?
It was the wine that got into my head—
Forgive me, O forgive, I meant it not,
I shall forsake you only when I'm dead.
…
This is no way my learned life to use!
Tell me a better, then, that I may choose.
Shall I for some remote imagined gain
My precious little hour of living lose?
…
A book, a woman, and a flask of wine:
The three make heaven for me; it may be thine
Is some sour place of singing cold and bare—
But then, I never said thy heaven was mine.
…
Set not thy heart on any good or gain,
Life means but pleasure, or it means but pain;
When Time lets slip a little perfect hour,
O take it—for it will not come again.
…
For, have you thought how short a time is ours?
Only a little longer than the flowers,
Here in the meadow just a summer's day,
Only to-day; to-morrow—other flowers.
…
The bird of life is singing on the bough
His two eternal notes of "I and Thou"—
O! hearken well, for soon the song sings through,
And, would we hear it, we must hear it now.
The bird of life is singing in the sun,
Short is his song, nor only just begun,—
A call, a trill, a rapture, then—so soon!—
A silence, and the song is done—is done.
Yea! what is man that deems himself divine?
Man is a flagon, and his soul the wine;
Man is a reed, his soul the sound therein;
Man is a lantern, and his soul the shine.
Would you be happy! hearken, then, the way:
Heed not To-morrow, heed not Yesterday;
The magic words of life are Here and Now—
O fools, that after some to-morrow stray!
Were I a Sultan, say what greater bliss
Were mine to summon to my side than this,—
Dear gleaming face, far brighter than the moon!
O Love! and this immortalizing kiss.
To all of us the thought of heaven is dear—
Why not be sure of it and make it here?
No doubt there is a heaven yonder too,
But 'tis so far away—and you are near.
Men talk of heaven,—there is no heaven but here;
Men talk of hell,—there is no hell but here;
Men of hereafters talk, and future lives,—
O love, there is no other life—but here.
Gay little moon, that hath not understood!
She claps her hands, and calls the red wine good;
O careless and beloved, if she knew
This wine she fancies is my true heart's blood.
…
You want to know the Secret—so did I,
Low in the dust I sought it, and on high
Sought it in awful flight from star to star,
The Sultan's watchman of the starry sky.
Up, up, where Parwin's hoofs stamp heaven's floor,
My soul went knocking at each starry door,
Till on the stilly top of heaven's stair,
Clear-eyed I looked—and laughed—and climbed no more.
Of all my seeking this is all my gain:
No agony of any mortal brain
Shall wrest the secret of the life of man;
The Search has taught me that the Search is vain.
Yet sometimes on a sudden all seems clear—
Hush! hush! my soul, the Secret draweth near;
Make silence ready for the speech divine—
If Heaven should speak, and there be none to hear!
Yea! sometimes on the instant all seems plain,
The simple sun could tell us, or the rain;
The world, caught dreaming with a look of heaven,
Seems on a sudden tip-toe to explain.
Like to a maid who exquisitely turns
A promising face to him who, waiting, burns
In hell to hear her answer—so the world
Tricks all, and hints what no man ever learns.
Look not above, there is no answer there;
Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer;
Near is as near to God as any Far,
And Here is just the same deceit as There.
But here are wine and beautiful young girls,
Be wise and hide your Sorrows in their curls,
Dive as you will in life's mysterious sea,
You shall not bring us any better pearls.
Allah, perchance, the secret word might spell;
If Allah be, He keeps His secret well;
What He hath hidden, who shall hope to find?
Shall God His secret to a maggot tell?
So since with all my passion and my skill,
The world's mysterious meaning mocks me still,
Shall I not piously believe that I
Am kept in darkness by the heavenly will?
…
The Koran! well, come put me to the test —
Lovely old book in hideous error drest —
Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
The unbeliever knows his Koran best.
And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
God gave the Secret, and denied it me? —
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.
Old Khayyám, say you, is a debauchee;
If only you were half so good as he!
He sins no sins but gentle drunkenness,
Great-hearted mirth, and kind adultery.
But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue,
The wintry soul that hates to hear a song,
The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye,
And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.
…
What care I, love, for what the Sufis say?
The Sufis are but drunk another way;
So you be drunk, it matters not the means,
So you be drunk—and glorify your clay.
Drunken myself, and with a merry mind,
An old man passed me, all in vine-leaves twined;
I said, "Old man, hast thou forgotten God?"
"Go, drink yourself," he said, "for God is kind."
"Did God set grapes a-growing, do you think,
And at the same time make it sin to drink?
Give thanks to Him who foreordained it thus—
Surely He loves to hear the glasses clink!"
From God's own hand this earthly vessel came,
He shaped it thus, be it for fame or shame;
If it be fair—to God be all the praise,
If it be foul—to God alone the blame.
…
Our wildest wrong is part of His great Right,
Our weakness is the shadow of His might,
Our sins are His, forgiven long ago,
To make His mercy more exceeding bright.
…
Eternal torment some sour wits foretell
For those who follow wine and love too well,—
Fear not, for God were left alone in Heaven
If all the lovely lovers burnt in hell.
…
Who set this wine-cup in my willing way?
Who made this woman of enchanted clay?
When gods decree such difficult commands,
They should give too the power to obey.
…
If I were God, I would not wait the years
To solve the mystery of human tears;
And, unambiguous, I would speak my will,
Nor hint it darkly to the dreaming seers.
…
Into this life of cruel wonder sent,
Without a word to tell us what it meant,
Sent back again without a reason why—
Birth, life, and death—'twas all astonishment.
I wonder why I go on living still
This life of pain and poison; why I still
Trust friends, hope good, still fight and still have faith
In this world's business—still, think of it, still!
I gave my heart, and life returns me—nought;
My mind, my soul, I gave—for what? For nought.
All dreams and loves and hopes I freely gave,
Nothing is left to give—I give it—nought!
…
All those who in their graves unheeded lie
Were just as pompous once as You and I,
Complacent spake their little arrogant names,
And wagged their heads, and never thought to die.
…
O heart, my heart, the world is weary-wise,
My only resting-place is your deep eyes,
O wrap me warm in their illusive love,—
For well I know that they are also lies.
Sometimes as, cup in hand among the flowers,
I think on all my witty wasted hours,
I see that wine has been a fable too,
Yes! even wine—so false a world is ours.
Yet were it vain some other way to try,
Of all our lying wine is least a lie,
All earthly roads wind nowhere in the end,—-
What matters then the road we travel by?
…
Yet if the soul should with the body die,
A flame that flickers when the oil runs dry,
Still but the heart that drives the strange machine—
And what remains of this you once called "I"?
…
This clay, this dream-sown sod, this chemic earth,
This wizard dust, wherein all shapes of birth,—
Soft flowers, great beasts, and huge pathetic kings,—-
Small seeds of wonder, fill a needle's girth.
…
Thus spake I to a potter on a day,
Bidding his careless wheel a moment stay—
"Be pitiful, O potter, nor forget
Potters and pots alike are made of clay."
And as I spake I heard a whisper steal,
A sad low laughter, from the potter's wheel,—
Behold! it was my father's sacred dust
For which unwittingly I made appeal.
…
Nay! think no more, but grip the slender waist
Of her whose kisses leave no bitter taste,
Reason's a hag, and love a painted jade,—
Come, daughter of the vine, dear and disgraced.
'Tis a wild wife, but sweet, my saintly brother,
Nor in this sour world know I such another;
Sweet but forbidden—yet who would not prefer
The wanton daughter to the lawful mother?
…
But, sinner, there's one thing I want to hear,
O tell me, is your sinning quite sincere?
You would not leave it even though you could,
Say that you would not, O my brother dear.
…
Strange in this wicked world how hard to find
A fellow-soul to honest sin inclined;
Sinners at home are always saints abroad,
The rose must never dare to speak its mind!
…
A sheik once took a harlot in her shame,
Calling the poor soul many an ugly name;
"'Tis true," she wept, "all I appear I am;
But, sheik, of thee would I could say the same!"
O speak not evil of these dancing flowers,
These girls that arrogantly we call ours—
Yours, mine, and any one's who bids and buys—
0 God! the pity of the fate of flowers!
…
My days are filled with wonder and with wine,
(Wine helps the wonder, wonder helps the wine,)
But in the night my bosom fills with tears—
Tears, tears, for one who never can be mine.
…
Who knows the meaning of a grain of sand
Knows the whole meaning of the sea and land,
And simple One by thousands multiplied
Is no more difficult to understand.
How strange is man, that hath forgot so soon
The daily wonder of the sun and moon,
And his deep heart on childish riddles breaks,
And fancies idle as a summer noon.
…
Sunday is good for drinking, Monday too,
Nor yet on Tuesday put the wine from you,
Wednesday drink deep, Thursday nor Friday fail—
On Saturday is nothing else to do.
The sixtieth cup makes me so wise with wine,
A thousand riddles clear as crystal shine,
And much I wonder what it can have been
That used to puzzle this poor head of mine.
Yet with the morn, the wine-deserted brain
Sees all its riddles trooping back again;
Say, am I sober when I see nought clear?
And am I drunk when I see all things plain?
When I am drunk the sky of life is clear,
And I gaze into it without a fear,
As I grow sober horribly I dread
The shadows of my vultures drawing near.