Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 08.djvu/46



O foolish one! this molded earth is naught;

This parti-colored vault of heaven is naught;

Our sojourn in this seat of life and death

Is but one breath, and what is that but naught?

Some wine, a Houri (Houris if there be),

A green bank by a stream, with minstrelsy;---

Toil not to find a better Paradise

If other Paradise indeed there be!

To the wine-house I saw the sage repair,

Bearing a wine-cup, and a mat for prayer;

I said, "O Shaikh, what does this conduct mean?"

Said he, "Go drink! the world is naught but air."

The Bulbul to the garden winged his way,

Viewed lily cups, and roses smiling gay,

Cried in ecstatic notes, "O live your life,

You never will relive this fleeting day. "

Thy body is a tent, where harborage

The Sultan spirit takes for one brief age;

When he departs, comes the tent-pitcher death,

Strikes it, and onward moves, another stage.

Khayyam, who long time stitched the tents of learning,

Has fallen into a furnace, and lies burning,

Death's shears have cut his thread of life asunder,

Fate's brokers sell him off with scorn and spurning.