“Yet Ah that Spring should vanish with the Rose. That Youth's sweetscented manuscript should close! The Nightingale that in the branches sang Ah whence and whither flown again who knows?”

“Oh, come with old Khayyàm, and leave the Wise To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies; One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown forever dies.”

“How much more of the mosque, of prayer and fasting?Better go drunk and begging round the taverns.Khayyam, drink wine, for soon this clay of yoursWill make a cup, bowl, one day a jar.When once you hear the roses are in bloom,Then is the time, my love, to pour the wine;Houris and palaces and Heaven and Hell-These are but fairy-tales, forget them all.”

“The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.”

“Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spinThe Thread of present Life away to win-What? for ourselves, who know not if we shallBreathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!”

“Now the New Year reviving old Desires,The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires.”

“Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Par”

“It is a shame for anyoneto be well-known for righteousness.It is a great disgrace to feeldistress at the injustice of the turning of the wheels of fate.”

“Every particle of dust on a patch of earthWas a sun-cheek or brow of the morning star;Shake the dust off your sleeve carefully--That too was a delicate, fair face.”

“Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flightThe Stars before him from the Field of Night,Drives Night along with them from Heav'n,and strikesThe Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light”

“Inscribed on it was a verse from the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, the eleventh-century Persian mystic. Reading the words aloud I prepared for a most amazing journey:The sages who have compassed sea and land,Their secret to search out and understand,My mind misgives me if they ever solveThe scheme on which the universe is planned.”