Excerpt
From Fitzgerald's exquisite version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, I take the following quatrains which may serve as a text for what I have to say:
So when the angel of the darker DrinkAt last shall find you by the river-brink,And offering you his cup, invite your SoulForth to your lips to quaff, you shall not shrink.
Why, if the soul can fling the Dust aside,And naked on the air of Heaven ride,Wert not a shame—wert not a shame for himIn this clay carcase crippled to abide?
'Tis but a tent where takes his one-day's restA Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;The Sultan rises, and the dark FerráshStrikes, and prepares it for another guest.
And fear not lest Existence, closing yourAccount, and mine, shall know the like no more;The Eternal Sáki from that bowl hath pour'dMillions of bubbles like us, and will pour.
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 heedsAs the Sev'n Seas shall heed a pebble-cast.
A moment's halt—a momentary tasteOf Being from the Well amid the waste,And lo!—the phantom caravan has reach'dThe Nothing it set out from—O, make haste!
* * *
There was the door to which I found no key;There was the veil through which I could not see:Some little talk awhile of Me and TheeThere was—and then no more of Thee and Me.
* * *
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'dOf the two worlds so learnedly are thrustLike foolish prophets forth; their words to scornAre scatter'd and their mouths are stopt with dust.
With them the seed of wisdom did I sow,And with my own hand wrought to make it growAnd this was all the harvest that I reap'd—"I come like water, and like wind I go."
* * *
Ah Love, could thou and I with Him conspireTo grasp this sorry scheme of Things entire,Would we not shatter it to bits—and thenRe-mould it nearer to the heart's desire!
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again—How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;How oft hereafter rising look for usThrough this same garden—and for one in vain!
And when like her, O Sáki, you shall passAmong the guests, star-scattered on the grass,And in your blissful errand reach the spotWhere I made one—turn down an empty glass!
* * *
And, again, in another poem from Carmen Silva's Roumanian folk-songs:
Hopeless.
Into the mist I gazed, and fear came on me,Then said the mist: "I weep for the lost sun."
We sat beneath our tent;Then he that hath no hope drew near us there,And sat him down by us.We asked him: "Hast thou seen the plains, the mountains?"And he made answer: "I have seen them all."And then his cloak he showed us, and his shirt,Torn was the shirt, there, close above the heart,Pierced was the breast, there, close above the heart—The heart was gone.And yet he trembled not, the while we looked,And sought the heart, the heart that was not there.He let us look. And he that had no hopeSmiled, that we grew so pale, and sang us songs.Then we did envy him, that he could singWithout a heart to suffer what he sang.And when he went, he cast his cloak about him,And those that met him, they could never guessHow that his shirt was torn about the heart,And that his breast was pierced above the heart,And that the heart was gone....