Page:Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the astronomer-poet of Persia (IA ru00biytofomaromarrich).pdf/39



Flinging a Stone into the Cup was the Signal for "To Horse!" in the Desert.

The "False Dawn;" Subhi Kházib, a transient Light on the Horizon about an hour before the Subhi sâdhik, or True Dawn; a well known Phenomenon in the East. The Persians call the Morning Gray, or Dusk, "Wolf-and-Sheep-While." "Almost at odds with, which is which."

New Year. Beginning with the Vernal Equinox, it must be remembered; and (howsoever the old Solar Year is practically superseded by the clumsy Lunar Year that dates from the Mohammedan Hijra) still commemorated by a Festival that is said to have been appointed by the very Jamshyd whom Omar so often talks of, and whose yearly Calendar he helped to rectify.

"The sudden approach and rapid advance of the Spring," (says a late Traveller in Persia) "are very striking. Before the Snow is well off the Ground, the Trees burst into Blossom, and the Flowers start from the Soil. At Now Rooz (their New Year's Day) the Snow was lying in patches on the Hills and in the shaded Vallies, while the Fruit-trees in the Garden were budding beautifully, and green Plants and Flowers springing upon the Plains on every side—

'And on old Hyem's Chin and icy Crown 'An odorous Chaplet of sweet Summer buds 'Is, as in mockery, set—' —