Page:Quatrains of Omar Khayyam (tr. Whinfield, 1883).djvu/238

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We are but chessmen, destined, it is plain, That great chess player, Heaven, to entertain; It moves us on life's chess-board to and fro, And then in death's box shuts up again.

You ask what is this life so frail, so vain, 'Tis long to tell, yet will I make it plain; 'Tis but a breath blown from the vasty deeps, And then blown back to those same deeps again!

To-day to heights of rapture have I soared. Yea, and with drunken Maghs pure wine adored; I am become beside myself, and rest In that pure temple, "Am not I your Lord?"