Rubaiyat 25
O friend, from your foes your heart release,
In pleasant company drink the good wine with ease.
Confer with those who know, open your heart
And from the ignorant fleas flee like the breeze.
O friend, from your foes your heart release,
In pleasant company drink the good wine with ease.
Confer with those who know, open your heart
And from the ignorant fleas flee like the breeze.
Since the flower withers in the dark,
The bud blooms to leave its mark,
Happy is the heart, light as a bubble,
At the tavern is naked, stark.
Candle’s story how can I tell?
Of the broken heart’s living hell?
My sorrow is in how I can find
Another who knows these sorrows well.
My broken heart’s sorrows are deep.
Painful, disturbed, broken my sleep.
If you don’t believe, send me your thoughts
And you will see how in sleep I weep.
If he could know my songs are all for him,
At silver dawn or in the evening glow,
Would he not smile and think it but a whim,
If he could know?
Or would his heart rejoice and overflow,
As happy brooks that break their icy rim
When April's horns along the hillsides blow?
I may not speak till Eros' torch is dim,
The god is bitter and will have it so;
And yet to-night our fate would seem less grim
If he could know.
She's passing fair; but so demure is she,
So quiet is her gown, so smooth her hair,
That few there are who note her and agree
She's passing fair.
Yet when was ever beauty held more rare
Than simple heart and maiden modesty?
What fostered charms with virtue could compare?
Alas, no lover ever stops to see;
The best that she is offered is the air.
Yet- if the passing mark is minus D-
She's passing fair.
Oh haste while roses bloom below,
Oh haste while pale and bright above
The sun and moon alternate glow,
To pluck the rose of love.
Yea, give the morning to the lark,
The nightingale its glimmering grove,
Give moonlight to the hungry dark,
But to man's heart give love!
Then haste while still the roses blow,
And pale and bright in heaven above
The sun and moon alternate glow,
Pluck, pluck the rose of love.
I left thee last, a child at heart,
A woman scarce in years:
I come to thee, a solemn corpse
Which neither feels nor fears.
I have no breath to use in sighs;
They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes
To seal them safe from tears.
Look on me with thine own calm look:
I meet it calm as thou.
No look of thine can change this smile,
Or break thy sinful vow:
I tell thee that my poor scorn'd heart
Is of thine earth--thine earth--a part:
Rosalind has come to town!
All the street’s a meadow,
Balconies are beeches brown
With a drowsy shadow,
And the long-drawn window panes
Are the foliage of her lanes.
Rosalind about me brings
Sunny brooks that quiver
Unto palpitating wings
Ere they kiss the river,
And her eyes are trusting birds
That do nestle without words.
Rosalind! to me you bear
Memories of a meeting
When the love-star smote the air
15
With a pulse’s beating:
Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart,
And with some store of pleasure give me aid,
For Jealousy, with all them of his part,
Strong siege about the weary tower has laid.
Nay, if to break his bands thou art afraid,
Too weak to make his cruel force depart,
Strengthen at least this castle of my heart,
And with some store of pleasure give me aid.
Nay, let not Jealousy, for all his art
Be master, and the tower in ruin laid,
That still, ah Love! thy gracious rule obeyed.
Advance, and give me succour of thy part;