OMAR

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3493, 1 November 1926, Page 10

OMAR

[To the Editor.] , Sir,— In his first letter, “Hunter of the East’’ damned the Rubaiyat with faint praise. Its chief virtue was that it had “inspired Fitzgerald’s English.” In his latest effusion, he abandons it altogether, and hands it over to me: "His ink,” (the Rubaiyat) he says "is for such as Carpe Diem.’’ He is so prodigal, because “Omar had not reached his extremity when Rubaiyat was written!”

None but a very superficial reader could suppose that Omar’s philosophy had not been tried in the fiery furnace of affliction. He had lost some of his nearest and dearest:

“For some we loved, the loveliest and the best That from his Vintage rolling Time hath pressed lHa\'e drunk their cup a round or two before. Ave one by one crept silently to rest.” To rest —that is the point. Omar had cqasod to bo troubled about cither “ —Threats of Hell" or “Hopes ot Paradise.” These, as the context shows, were the man-made fears and sorrows that infested the soul, the results of “misbelieving.” When one reads about the horrors of the medieval hell, Christian or Mohammedan, and the obnoxious and painful processes of attaining paradise, it is easy to realise tlm relief that Omar experienced when he thought of his loved ones as being "at rest.” T do not think he would agree with tho “Hunter” in describing this “earth-life” as “hellish.” It was not tho quality of its :ioys with which he found fault, but their fleeting character that made him desire the power to shatter to bits and remould the present scheme of things; “Vet ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! That Youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close!” To him, this world was not the best of all imaginable worlds, but on the other hand he was not disposed to under-value it, he had anticipated the advice of the hymn-writer and “counted his blessings.” Hor was he a drunkard. They mistake greatly who look on the Rubaiyat merely as an epic of wine, though, as regards this latter, it is to be remembered, as he points out, that "Ce this Juice the growth of God, who dare Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare ? A Blessing, we should use it, should we not ? And if a curse —why. then, who set it there ?” Other delights, more or less incompatible with drunkenness, which he mtions arc those of solitude, the country, gardens, poetry, music, congenial companionship, frugality, and freedom from worldly ambition. No lover of Omar could contemplate with equanimity the possibility that in the presence of “ that Angel of the darker Brink.” He should make a recantation in extremis, n death-bod repentance. Rather one would wish that to the end he should sing with a modern poet:— Laugh and be merry: remember in olden time, God made Heaven and Barth for joy be took in a rhyme, Made them, and filled them with the strong red wine of his mirth. The splendid joy of the stars; the joy ot tho earth.

So we must laugh and drink from the deep blue cup of thi sky. Join the jubilant song of the groat stars sweeping by, Laugh and battle and work, and drink of tho wine outpoured In tho dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord. (.1. Masefield.) In making this, ray final, contribution to this correspondence, I thank you for the courtesy of your valuable space, and trust that these imperfect notes may have led some readers to desire the further acquaintance of the brave old Porsion tentmaker.—l am, etc., OARPE DIEM.