Page:Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the astronomer-poet of Persia (IA ru00biytofomaromarrich).pdf/43

Rh that is, some Dividual Existence or Personality apart from the Whole.

The Caravan travelling by Night (after their New Year's Day of the Vernal Equinox) by command of Mohammed, I believe.

The 72 Sects into which Islamism so soon split.

This alludes to Mahmúd's Conquest of India and its swarthy Idolaters.

Fanúsi khiyál, a Magic-lanthorn still used in India; the cylindrical Interior being painted with various Figures, and so lightly poised and ventilated as to revolve round the Candle lighted within.

A very mysterious Line in the original;

breaking off something like our Wood-pigeon's Note, which she is said to take up just where she left off.

Parwín and Mushtara—The Pleiads and Jupiter.

At the Close of the Fasting Month, Ramazán (which makes the Musulman unhealthy and unamiable), the first Glimpse of the New Moon (who rules their Division of the Year) is looked for with the utmost Anxiety, and hailed with all Acclamation. Then it is that the Porter's Knot may be heard toward the Cellar, perhaps. Old Omar has elsewhere a pretty Quatrain about this same Moon—

"Be of Good Cheer—the sullen Month will die, "And a young Moon requite us by and bye: "Look how the Old one meagre, bent, and wan "With Age and Fast, is fainting from the Sky!"