RIMES ON THE RUBAIYAT OF KHAYYAM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2925, 6 April 1910, Page 92

RIMES ON THE RUBAIYAT OF KHAYYAM.

INTRODUCTION. With leaf of laurel for a Persian Spell, A.nd sprigs of rue, this halting verse would tell Of true and false beneath the potter's dome, Taught by the tallei of a passing bell. , . . But little time the Bulbul hath to sing, His lyrics on. the well-sunned air to fling. To pour with joyar.ce his redundant note, 'Good-bye to winter and all hail the spring!" But little time the blossom hath to blow, One momiont only when the host may throw His purple win-e upon the dusty ground, And say, "O guest, dost thou not something owe?" But little time the reveller hath to stray, But little time to find the radiant way, Through door of darkness to the starry cross, From hapless midnight to transcendent day. Then hushed, sad prophet, be thy dying knell, • . For other chimes we hear; no passing belt Can silence joy; no tree supplant the Croi3s; No Mosfem fountain mock life's springing well. THEME. "Was't thou, O pallid Omar, who didst write Of earth" and urns, of morning and cf night, " Of wine and flagons, and the crowing cock? Ox didst thou thus, Fitzgerald, darken light? It matters little whose illustrious pen, Or whose the peering eye of purblind ken, "Whose finger traced this too sweet-scented script. Too subtle, sensuous, for the soul's amen. Wragrant, yet drowsed, as the perfumed rose, Of beauty languishing while lamplight glows, This ignis fatuus of an Eastern mind Casts painted shadows upon Western snows. Ignoring miracles of star and sun, The vasty depth below} high heaven begun; The earth's probation and the blessed realm Herein are cancell'd and the listener won To hear the bard sing recklessly of wine, The bitter-sweets of "vintages malign, And bid to drain the cup ere youth shall pass, ■"'•*'.

To draw the wine of life, and life resign. O thirsty traveller, drinking from thy i>alm Of purer springs, of free, life-giving balm, Pity that other who from earthen bowl Drew false elixir for his bitter qualm. For man, mean vessel of immoital birth, Cam ne'er be sated from encircling earth; The cup that same day must inverted be Too shallow is and frail for need or worth. Still, though the cup be turned, men lift it high; On river banks, where river runs not dryi

Pluck at the petals of their fading rose, And with their joy extinguished laugh and die. •

No spice is stored beneath that beaded brim. No healthful salve for eyes bemused and dim. No treasure for the trembling hand to hold, The oowl is breaking while the senses swim. . . .

"We turn, O Omar, from thy desert cry, It holds no dream, no sweet high prophecy, Thine offered draught is mix'd with dark despair, The failing goblet runneth soon adry. Thine was the grape and leaf, O Desertborn ; " '"•'"'. Thine was the blossom and, alas! the thorn. To pass from pleasure on the wind's chill blast, " ■" A bough once beautiful all bare and shorn. The twisted tendril of a barren vine, Faitble.r.3 to thee and me. thy tomb entwine, To tell tfce me3iag-e that thou speakest—dead: "I tannot burn my scroll—efface my sign."

Spectator >f the drama! grave and mute, Draw thou the, curtain, hush the lilting lute ; ~ Look ' forth beyond the night: behold the dawn, ' And let thy soul receive the sun's salute. Then take the flagon; o'er its ruddy marge Not for libation nor largess discharge, But for repentance that thy crippled clay Be not fox sin and grief an easy targe. . . . Perchar.ce that crippled clay might yet be lent Far thought and deed, not meanly passionspent ; "" A noble canopy for life's poor guest—-'Twix-t earth and heaven,- without seem, or rent Reach such perfection as the potter sought, When for his image faithfully he wrought To form' from broken and dishonoured clay A vessel cEci&ea to fulfil his thought. . . . Thy Maker, learner, wrote not in the sand, Nor weak His law, nor idle His demand, That pots in secret curiously wrought Be shaped and moulded by the Potter'3 hand. Dost thou with Omar say —" 'Tis but a row Of magic shadow-shapes that come and go, Bound with the sun-illumin'd lantern held"? In midnight by the master of the show." Sad one, who, lodging in the wilderness. Dost from the grape of earth its juice express, To find it- flung upon an arid wasteTo see the withering of the rose you press. Couldst thou but grasp the slight dividing hair, Couldst thou some spangle of existence spare To find the treasure and the master-key, Thy burning bosom might the secret share. 'Tis One, thy Maker; He alone who knows The mystery of life—its birth and close; 'Tis He who guards its why and whence and where; - [ ■ • . 'Tis He from whom illumination flows. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do well, By .whose high word man rose and angels fell, With his poor vessel and the trembling soul, Despairing heaven and yet fearing hell? ... The. vision waits, that he who runs may' xead; ■ - With eyes anointed and his spirit freed, Released from anguish and earth's vain Smile at the dusty road and quicken speed— Isoend thy ladder to the Golden Throne, That so thy days the ripened year may own, That neither rolling earth nor seas may mourn , _ For seed of sorrow in thy garden grown.

Forsake thine idols, then, O soul, a.nd shake Thy fetters -far; in fair sweet fountains slake Thy parched lips, and share thy brimming cup With those who late arise or sarly—wake. —JOYCB JocBIiTN. * On the matter and liter the manner of the poem by Omar Khayyam, rendered into Bugllsh by Edward Fitzgerald. (Macmillan's reprint, fourth edition.)