Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 08.djvu/40



Behold these cups! Can He who deigned to make them,

In wanton freak let ruin overtake them,

So many shapely feet and hands and heads---

What love drives Him to make, what wrath to break them?

Death's terrors spring from baseless fantasy,

Death yields the tree of immortality;

Since 'Isa breathed new life into my soul,

Eternal death has washed its hands of me!

Like tulips in the Spring your cups lift up,

And, with a tulip-cheeked companion, sup

With joy your wine, or e'er this azure wheel

With some unlooked-for blast upset your cup.

Facts will not change to humor man's caprice,

So vaunt not human powers, but hold your peace;

Here must we stay, weighed down with grief for this.

That we were born so late, so soon decease.

Khayyam! why weep you that your life is bad?

What boots it thus to mourn? Rather be glad.

He that sins not can make no claim to mercy,

Mercy was made for sinners---be not sad.

All mortal ken is bounded by the veil,

To see beyond man's sight is all too frail;

Yea! earth's dark bosom is his only home:---

Alas! 'twere long to tell the doleful tale.