Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/865

 EDWARD FITZGERALD

ii

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan 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 Csesar 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 Beloved, fill the Cup that clears TO-DAY of past Regrets and Future Fears:

To-morrow 1 Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday's Scv'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?

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