The Moving Finger: A Rubāʿī Dialogue with Process Thought

The Moving Finger: A Rubāʿī Dialogue

Part 1: A Creative Imitation in Statement & Restatement

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5

*Below is a construction of Omar's imagined quatrains alternating with Process-based responses. It is written as a miniature Rubāʿiyyāt cycle (AABA rhyme) in 14 stanzas, alternating Omar Khayyam's fatalistic voice with Process’s more hopeful counterpoint, in strict quatrain fashion. Again, sections I, III, V, VII, IX, XI, XIII were composed in Omar’s imagined voice but are not direct translations of his pen. They were written to imitate Khayyám’s fatalism - roses fading, goblets draining, stars indifferent, fate irrevocable - and to stand in contrast to Process’s relational hope.

I. Omar

The Moving Finger writes, and will not stay,
No hand nor prayer can turn its course away;
What once is writ endures beyond our tears —
The line is sealed, unbroken in its sway.

II. Process

The Moving Finger writes, yet still the tale extends,
Its ink does bend where love with freedom blends;
Tho' past is fixed, perceived futures are never closed,
For time is shaped by God and all God’s friends.

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III. Omar

The rose will fade, the goblet soon is dry,
The stars are mute to every human cry;
So drink, my friend, and kiss while you can —
For all must sleep, though none may knoweth why.

IV. Process

Dying roses will bloom again upon every new day,
And laughter lives on in hearts when breath is gone;
What’s sown in past and present is gathered into God,
In death is redeemed all hopes and dreams unmet.

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V. Omar

The kings and beggars share the selfsame grave,
No crown endures, no tyrant’s hand can save;
The earth devours the mighty and the meek —
All vanish swift beneath the dust they gave.

VI. Process

Yet every act lives on, though bodies fall,
Each moment cherished, treasured, known by all;
God holds the world, its sorrow and delight,
Preserved forever in a cosmic hall.

---

VII. Omar

The scholar’s book is ash, the priest’s a jest,
The wise grow weary, none can answer best;
If truth be known, it hides behind the veil —
So fill the cup, and leave to fate the rest.

VIII. Process

Yet wisdom grows through questions we pursue,
Not final walls, but openings to the new;
Truth is a journey woven out of time,
Each step revealing more than what we knew.

---

IX. Omar

The wheel of heaven grinds with ruthless might,
It crushes kings and beggars in its flight;
What use is prayer beneath a turning dome,
When fate is deaf and justice out of sight?

X. Process

The wheel still turns, but not by force alone,
Its axis hums with mercy softly shown;
For God persuades, not crushes, in the dance,
Inviting freedom’s seed the world has sown.

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XI. Omar

What is the heart but dust that beats in vain?
What is the soul but echo, hushed again?
If all is written, let us laugh and die —
There is no balm for suffering, only pain.

XII. Process

Yet pain itself becomes God’s tender part,
A wound embraced within the cosmic heart;
No tear is lost, but gathers into streams
That flow through time to heal, renew, restart.

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XIII. Omar

The Moving Finger writes; its word is fate,
Nor wit nor wisdom may its path abate;
The line is firm, the ink will never fade,
The door is locked, and locked remains the gate.

XIV. Process

The Moving Finger writes — but not alone,
Its pen is guided where new seeds are sown;
The scroll expands with every choice we make,
And love may turn its ink to brighter tone.

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The Moving Finger: A Rubāʿī Dialogue

Part 2: A Revised Construction using Omar's Original Voice

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5

Here is a shorter dialogue using the actual Persian rubāʿiyyāt attributed to Omar Khayyám, centered on the Pen of destiny (qalam). These quatrains are among those which scholars have connected to translator FitzGerald’s “Moving Finger” verse. They are translated literally, then paired with new Process  responses in parallel quatrains.

Unlike the creative imitation above, this version anchors itself in authentic manuscript material (Ouseley MS, Furūghī–Ghanī edition). Omar’s historical fatalism is voiced directly: "What the Pen has written cannot be changed, grief is futile, destiny is beyond appeal."

The Process counterpoints answer each with the claim that while the past is indeed fixed, the future remains open to co-creation with the God of Creation, and Love transfigures all that is written. This creates a hybrid text: an authentic Khayyám in dialogue with postmodern process thought.

I. Omar (Ouseley 31)

From the beginning what was to be was writ;
The Pen from good and evil never quit.
On that first Day all that must be was given—
Our grief and striving are in vain of it.

II. Process

The Finger writes, yet futures are not sealed;
Love lures new paths where healing is revealed.
Though past is fixed, the page ahead lies open,
Where beauty grows from sorrow unconcealed.

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III. Omar (Ouseley 54)

What the Pen has passed will never be undone,
From grief comes naught but hearts that bleed and run.
Though all your life you drink red tears of pain,
Not one drop alters what the Pen has spun.

IV. Process

The past endures, but never stands alone;
Each tear is gathered, cherished, Spirit-sown.
What’s written lives, but may be transfigured still,
Through God who weaves new beauty from the known.

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V. Omar (Variant)

No change will come to what the Pen has made;
Not one grain added, nothing lost or stayed.
Why wound your heart with grief that yields no fruit?
From sorrow’s cup, no balm, no joy is laid.

VI. Process

Yet every act is held in tender hands;
No sorrow wasted, nothing leaves God’s plans.
The ink is fixed — but meanings can be mended,
And love redeems what anguish once demands.

---

VII. Omar (Qalam al-Qaḍā)

If fate is penned without my will or say,
Why hold me guilty, why my soul arraign?
Yesterday passed without me — so today;
By what right judge me in tomorrow’s plain?

VIII. Process

God’s hand persuades, not forces, in the scroll;
Freedom is real, co-authored with the Whole.
The future writes with God and us together,
Our lines entwined, yet each one free in role.

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Omar Khayyam's Moving Finger:

His Philosophy and a Processual Response

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5

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Introduction

Few images in world literature have captured the inexorability of time more memorably than English translator Edward FitzGerald's rendering of Omar Khayyám’s Persian fatalism of the early 1100's from the Rubāʿiyyāt (plural; rubāʿī, singular):

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

*Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.*¹

¹The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, 1st ed., London: Bernard Quaritch, 1859;
Quatrain LI, later renumbered in subsequent editions

These verses embody a haunting conviction that once life is lived, it is irrevocably inscribed upon the scroll of existence. No devotion, no wit, no tear can undo what is written:

Once life is lived, it is irrevocably inscribed upon the Scroll of Existence.

No devotion, no wit, no tear, can undo that which is written.

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Editorial Note

There is no single "original poem" from the 1100's that look like the famous Moving Finger stanza. What is known is The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859) is Edward FitzGerald’s Victorian reworking of the poet in a free and often imaginative adaptation from Persian manuscripts.

Those diverse manuscripts which were collected centuries after Khayyám’s death had preserved dozens of quatrains attributed to him, though their authenticity remains uncertain. Scholars estimate that perhaps a few dozen verses are genuinely Khayyam's, while many more were later additions under his name as embodied amanuensis material.

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The Persian Philosopher, Ibn Sina

Khayyám (1048–1131) was not only a poet but also a mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. He lived in the intellectual shadow of Avicenna ( = Latinized name of the Persian name, Ibn Sīnā, 980–1037), the most influential philosopher of the Islamic Golden Age, whose metaphysics argued that all reality is grounded in a Necessary Existence  - a God beyond contingency, timeless and unchanging.²

Khayyám studied Avicenna and even wrote treatises in the same tradition,³ but his quatrains suggest deep disquiet: if all is governed by necessity, where is human freedom, where is meaning, where is comfort?

This article will explore that tension -  Avicenna’s metaphysical necessity vs. Khayyám’s poetic fatalism - and consider how (Whiteheadian) process philosophy and theology provide a creative integration.

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Statement of the Problem

Three contrasting claims frame the debate:

1. Avicenna: Reality requires a Necessary Being. Without this metaphysically timeless, unchanging ground, contingent beings could not exist. The universe is rational and ordered.

2. Khayyám: Human experience tells another story. Destiny is inexorable, life fleeting, the cosmos indifferent. “The moving finger” writes without appeal.

3. The problem: Is existence governed by immutable necessity (Avicenna) or by inscrutable fate (Khayyám)? And what does that mean for human freedom, meaning, and ethics?

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Restatement in Contemporary Terms

The same questions echo today:

• Science and determinism: Is the universe a closed causal system, every event fixed by natural law?⁴

• Indeterminacy: Does modern physics (quantum uncertainty, chaos theory) show that openness and novelty are real features of existence?⁵

• Human experience: Are we fated like Khayyám believed, or are our lives open-ended stories?

• Theology: Can God be both the rational ground of order and the relational presence in human becoming?

Process philosophy suggests: though the past seems real, fixed and irreversible (though paradoxically affected by  the future), the future is genuinely open. Determinism and fatalism are not the final word.

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Part I: The Philosophical Response

Avicenna’s Metaphysical Necessity

Avicenna distinguished between essence (what something is) and existence (that something is). In contingent beings, these are distinct: a horse can be defined in essence but may or may not exist. Only in God do essence and existence coincide.⁶

God is therefore the Necessary Existent (wājib al-wujūd): a being whose existence is essential, whose non-existence is impossible. From God, all else flows in an emanating hierarchy — intellects, souls, spheres, matter. This secures cosmic intelligibility.

Avicenna’s influence stretched far beyond Islam. His metaphysics shaped Jewish philosophy (Maimonides), Christian scholasticism (Aquinas), and even modern debates on essence and existence.⁷

Khayyám’s Fatalistic Skepticism

Khayyám, though a philosopher by training, is remembered for his quatrains (rubāʿiyyāt). In them, destiny is inexorable, the future sealed, and consolation lies only in fleeting pleasures.

• Pessimism: All human striving ends in dust.

• Fatalism: “The moving finger writes” — and moves on.

• Epicureanism: Since tomorrow is uncertain, drink wine and savor roses.

Historically, FitzGerald’s translation exaggerated Khayyám’s fatalism, but even in Persian the tension is clear: he doubted reason’s promises and distrusted claims of cosmic order.⁸

The Process Philosophical Intervention

Process philosophy, rooted in Alfred North Whitehead, reframes the tension.

1. Creativity over necessity:

   • Avicenna saw necessity as the foundation of being.

   • Whitehead: creativity is the ultimate category. Reality is not fixed essence but a continuous creative advance into novelty.⁹

2. Actual occasions over substances:

   • Avicenna’s distinction between essence and existence is replaced by Whitehead’s “actual occasions,” events where potential and actuality converge. Each moment is both determined by the past and open to novelty.

3. Past fixed, future open:

   • Khayyám’s fatalism rightly sees the past as irreversible.

   • Process thought agrees: the past is preserved forever (“objective immortality”).¹⁰

   • But it rejects fatalism: the future is unwritten, open to genuine novelty and freedom.

Philosophical conclusion: Where Avicenna froze reality in necessity and Khayyám despaired in futility, process philosophy insists reality is relational, temporal, and open.

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Part II: The Theological Response

Avicenna’s God

Avicenna’s God is the Necessary Existent: timeless, immutable, pure actuality. This secures order, but makes God abstract and impersonal. Such a God cannot suffer, cannot change, cannot relate.

Khayyám’s God

Khayyám’s quatrains often portray God as inscrutable, silent, or arbitrary. If God has inscribed destiny, then prayer and piety are powerless. God is not companion but question mark.

The Process God

Process theology critiques both.

1. Against Avicenna:

   • God is not a static ground but a dynamic relation.

   • God’s essence is constant (love, relationality, creativity), but God’s experience is temporal, shaped by the world.¹¹

   • This is the dipolar God: eternal in nature, temporal in experience.

2. Against Khayyám:

   • The past is indeed unalterable — God does not erase history.

   • But God redeems the past by holding it in divine memory, weaving even suffering into future possibilities.¹²

   • The future is open: God does not decree but persuasively lures creation toward beauty and justice.

Ethical Implications

• If Avicenna is right, ethics is subordinated to cosmic necessity.

• If Khayyám is right, ethics dissolves into fleeting pleasure before oblivion.

• In process theology, ethics becomes co-creative responsibility: our choices shape not only our lives but the divine life itself. God feels every act, every joy, every sorrow. Our freedom matters infinitely.

Theological conclusion: God is neither distant necessity nor indifferent scribe, but the co-creative companion of the world.

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Part III: Integration

Avicenna and Khayyám represent two poles:

• Avicenna: rational necessity and cosmic order.

• Khayyám: poetic fatalism and existential futility.

Process thought integrates them:

• Like Avicenna, it affirms order — reality is not chaos, but intelligible process.

• Like Khayyám, it affirms irreversibility — the past is real and cannot be erased.

• Beyond both, it insists on openness — the future is unwritten, co-authored by God and creation.

Thus, the “Moving Finger” becomes not merely a fatalistic scribe but a living symbol of process: inscribing each moment with the ink of past necessity while leaving the page of tomorrow open to possibility.

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Conclusion

The debate between Avicenna and Khayyám is more than historical. It captures the enduring human struggle to reconcile metaphysical order with lived experience of fate.

• Avicenna sought certainty in a Necessary Existent.

• Khayyám found futility in a cosmos indifferent to our cries.

• Process philosophy and theology offer a third way:

  • Philosophically: creativity is ultimate, time is real, the future is open.

  • Theologically: God is relational, feeling with the world, redeeming the past, and luring the future toward beauty.

Thus the “Moving Finger” writes, yes — but it writes with us, not over us. Its ink is not only fate but freedom; not only necessity but creativity; not only inevitability but divine love.

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Notes

1. Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, trans. Edward FitzGerald (1859), Quatrain 51.

2. Avicenna, The Metaphysics of the Healing (al-Ilāhiyyāt min al-Shifāʾ), ed. and trans. Michael E. Marmura (Provo: BYU Press, 2005).

3. Mehdi Aminrazavi, The Wine of Wisdom: The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005), 97–115.

4. Pierre-Simon Laplace, “Philosophical Essay on Probabilities” (1814), the classic deterministic formulation.

5. Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (1958); Ilya Prigogine, Order Out of Chaos (1984).

6. Avicenna, Metaphysics of the Healing, bk. I, ch. 5.

7. Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949).

8. Aminrazavi, Wine of Wisdom, 183–209.

9. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, corrected ed., ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald Sherburne (New York: Free Press, 1978), 21.

10. Ibid., 350–52.

11. Charles Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948).

12. John B. Cobb Jr., A Christian Natural Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965).

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Bibliography

• Aminrazavi, Mehdi. The Wine of Wisdom: The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005.

• Avicenna. The Metaphysics of the Healing. Ed. and trans. Michael E. Marmura. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005.

• Cobb, John B. Jr. A Christian Natural Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965.

• FitzGerald, Edward, trans. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. London: 1859.

• Gilson, Etienne. Being and Some Philosophers. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949.

• Hartshorne, Charles. The Divine Relativity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948.

• Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Philosophy. New York: Harper, 1958.

• Prigogine, Ilya. Order Out of Chaos. New York: Bantam, 1984.

• Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality. Corrected edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald Sherburne. New York: Free Press, 1978.

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The Moving Finger: A Rubāʿī Dialogue

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5

*Written in oppositional columns of statement and restatement

Omar (Fatalism)	Process (Openness)
I. The Moving Finger writes, and will not stay, No hand nor prayer can turn its course away; What once is writ endures beyond our tears — The line is sealed, unbroken in its sway.	II. The Finger writes, yet still the tale extends, Its ink may bend where love with freedom blends; The past is fixed — but futures are not closed, For time is shaped by God and all God’s friends.
III. The rose will fade, the goblet soon is dry, The stars are mute to every human cry; So drink, my friend, and kiss while yet you can — For all must sleep, though none may knoweth why.	IV. Yet roses bloom again with each new dawn, And laughter lives in hearts though breath be gone; What’s sown in time is gathered into God, And death redeems what seemed a joy withdrawn.
V. The kings and beggars share the selfsame grave, No crown endures, no tyrant’s hand can save; The earth devours the mighty and the meek — All vanish swift beneath the dust they gave.	VI. Yet every act lives on, though bodies fall, Each moment cherished, treasured, known by all; God holds the world, its sorrow and delight, Preserved forever in a cosmic hall.
VII. The scholar’s book is ash, the priest’s a jest, The wise grow weary, none can answer best; If truth be known, it hides behind the veil — So fill the cup, and leave to fate the rest.	VIII. Yet wisdom grows through questions we pursue, Not final walls, but openings to the new; Truth is a journey woven out of time, Each step revealing more than what we knew.
IX. The wheel of heaven grinds with ruthless might, It crushes kings and beggars in its flight; What use is prayer beneath a turning dome, When fate is deaf and justice out of sight?	X. The wheel still turns, but not by force alone, Its axis hums with mercy softly shown; For God persuades, not crushes, in the dance, Inviting freedom’s seed the world has sown.
XI. What is the heart but dust that beats in vain? What is the soul but echo, hushed again? If all is written, let us laugh and die — There is no balm for suffering, only pain.	XII. Yet pain itself becomes God’s tender part, A wound embraced within the cosmic heart; No tear is lost, but gathers into streams That flow through time to heal, renew, restart.
XIII. The Moving Finger writes; its word is fate, Nor wit nor wisdom may its path abate; The line is firm, the ink will never fade, The door is locked, and locked remains the gate.	XIV. The Moving Finger writes — but not alone, Its pen is guided where new seeds are sown; The scroll expands with every choice we make, And love may turn its ink to brighter tone.

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Quatrains on the Pen of Fate (Qalam)

Attributed to Omar Khayyám

Appendix: Persian Texts 

Here is provided the original Persian rubāʿiyyāt that form the basis of the Revised English Construction. Each 4-line quatrain includes the original Persian script, it's transliteration, and a literal and poetic English rendering.

 

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Quatrain 1 – Ouseley 31

Persian	Transliteration	Literal English	Poetic Rendering
زین پیش نشان بودنی‌ها بوده‌ست پیوسته قلم ز نیک و بد ناسوده‌ست در روز ازل هر آنچه بایست بداد غم خوردن و کوشیدنِ ما بیهوده‌ست	zīn pīsh nishān būdanī-hā būda-st peyvaste qalam ze nīk o bad nā-sūda-st dar rūz-e azal har ānche bāyest bedād gham khordan o kūshīdan-e mā bīhūda-st	From the beginning what was to be has been marked; the Pen has never rested from writing good and bad. On the First Day all that must be was given; our grieving and our striving are in vain.	Before all time, the scroll of fate was spread; The Pen wrote ceaseless, tallying good and ill. On that first dawn all things were fixed and said — Why strive, why sorrow, when it is God’s will?

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Quatrain 2 – Ouseley 54

Persian	Transliteration	Literal English	Poetic Rendering
از رفته قلم هیچ دگرگون نشود وز خوردن غم بجز جگرخون نشود گر در همه عمر خویش خونابه خوری یک قطره از آن که هست افزون نشود	az rafte qalam hīch digargūn nashavad va-z khordan-e gham be-joz jigar-khūn nashavad gar dar hameh ‘omr-e khīsh khūnāba khurī yek qatra az ān keh hast afzūn nashavad	Nothing changes from what the Pen has written; from grief comes nothing but a bleeding liver (heart). Even if all your life you drink tears of blood, not a single drop will be added to what already is.	No change will come to what the Pen has sealed; From sorrow only bleeding hearts are born. Though all your days you drink red tears concealed, The tally stays — no line erased, no sworn.

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Quatrain 3 – Variant

Persian	Transliteration	Literal English	Poetic Rendering
از رفته قلم هیچ دگرگون نشود یک ذره از آنچه هست افزون نشود هان تا جگر خویش به غم خون نکنی کز خوردن غم به‌جز جگرخون نشود	az rafte qalam hīch digargūn nashavad yak zarra az ān-che hast afzūn nashavad hān tā jigar-e khīsh be-gham khūn nakonī kaz khordan-e gham be-joz jigar-khūn nashavad	What the Pen has passed cannot be changed; not a grain is added to what exists. Beware, do not make your liver bleed with grief, for from grieving comes nothing but a bleeding heart.	The Pen has writ — no letter may be turned; No atom added to what was decreed. Why wound your heart with grief that brings no end? From sorrow’s cup, no fruit, no balm, no seed.

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Quatrain 4 – The Pen of Decree

Persian	Transliteration	Literal English	Poetic Rendering
بر من قلمِ قضا چو بی‌من رانند پس نیک و بدش ز من چرا می‌دانند دی بی‌من و امروز چو دی بی‌من و تو فردا به چه حجّتم بداور خوانند	bar man qalam-e qażā cho bī-man rānand pas nīk o bad-ash ze man cherā mīdānand dī bī-man o emrūz cho dī bī-man o to fardā be che hojjat-am ba-dāvar khānand	If the Pen of Decree is run without me, why then account its good and bad to me? Yesterday was without me, today the same without you or me — on what grounds shall they summon me to judgment tomorrow?	If fate is penned without my hand or say, Why blame my soul for evil or for good? Yesterday passed without me — so today; What claim remains when God has sealed the Book?

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Notes & context

• #1 and #2 (Ouseley MSS 31 & 54) are the core Persian loci scholars use when discussing where FitzGerald’s “Moving Finger” likely drew its imagery of an unhalting Pen and the irrevocability of what is written. The page quoted gives the Persian, transliteration, and scholarly notes.

• #4 is a classical editorial witness (Furūghī & Ghanī text on Wikisource) that explicitly names qalam-e qażā (“Pen of Decree”). 

• #5 complements the theme with qażā/ qadar (fate/decree); while it doesn’t say “Pen,” it sits in the same fatalist semantic field that FitzGerald condensed. 

• Another Persian witness of #2 is preserved in Iranian online text libraries, confirming the formula “az rafte qalam…” across editions.

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What could be found on the Internet:

• Wikisource, Persian Author Page – Omar Khayyám: A general page listing works by Khayyām in Persian. Wikisource

• Ganjoor.net: a large digital library of Persian literature that includes many of Khayyām’s rubāʿiyyāt (though not always with the exact critical apparatus or manuscript identifiers). (I saw references in earlier work to quatrains involving “qadar / qażā” there, but location is not always precisely documented.)

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What could not be reliably found on the Internet:

• A stable, authenticated online version of Ouseley MSS 31 or 54 that includes Persian + scholarly transliteration + commentary, clearly labeled with those MS numbers, that I could confirm matches scholarly editions.

• A verified online full text of the Furūghī & Ghanī edition quatrain that explicitly uses qalam-e qażā (“Pen of Decree”), with commentary, that matches the referenced quatrain.

• Clear, stable URLs for “Another Persian witness of #2… confirming the ‘az rafte qalam…’ formula” in manuscripts with scholarly notes, accessible publicly.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

allpoetry.com

wikipedia - omar khayyam

I.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

II.
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."

III.
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted — "Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."

IV.
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

V.
Iram indeed is gone with all its Rose,
And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one Knows;
But still the Vine her ancient ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water blows.

VI.
And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine
High piping Pehlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine!" — the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That yellow Cheek of hers to incarnadine.

VII.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly — and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

VIII.
Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life kep falling one by one.

IX.
Morning a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.

X.
But come with old Khayyam, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or Hatim Tai cry Supper — heed them not.

XI.
With me along the strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot —
And Peace is Mahmud on his Golden Throne!

XII.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

XIII.
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Promise go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

XIV.
Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spin
The Thread of present Life away to win —
What? for ourselves, who know not if we shall
Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!

XV.
Look to the Rose that blows about us — "Lo,
Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow:
At once the silken Tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."

XVI.
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes — or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two — is gone.

XVII.
And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,
And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

XVIII.
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two and went his way.

XIX.
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahram, that great Hunter — the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

XX.
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.

XXI.
And this delightful Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean —
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XXII.
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears —
To-morrow? — Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

XXIII.
Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and best
That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to Rest.

XXIV.
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend, ourselves to make a Couch — for whom?

XXV.
Ah, make the most of what we may yet spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie;
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and — sans End!

XXVI.
Alike for those who for To-day prepare,
And those that after some To-morrow stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
"Fools! Your Reward is neither Here nor There!"

XXVII.
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Works to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

XXVIII.
Oh, come with old Khayyam, 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.

XXIX.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

XXX.
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd —
"I came like Water and like Wind I go."

XXXI.
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

XXXII.
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate.

XXXIII.
There was the Door to which I found no Key:
There was the Veil through which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was — and then no more of Thee and Me.

XXXIV.
Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, "What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?"
And — "A blind Understanding!" Heav'n replied.

XXXV.
Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean'd, the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd — "While you live,
Drink! — for, once dead, you never shall return."

XXXVI.
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And merry-make, and the cold Lip I kiss'd,
How many Kisses might it take — and give!

XXXVII.
For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd — "Gently, Brother, gently, pray!"

XXXVIII.
And has not such a Story from of Old
Down Man's successive generations roll'd
Of such a clod of saturated Earth
Cast by the Maker into Human mould?

XXXIX.
Ah, fill the Cup: — what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!

XL.
A Moment's Halt — a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste —
And Lo! the phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from — Oh, make haste!

XLI.
Oh, plagued no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow's tangle to itself resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.

XLII.
Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavor and dispute;
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, fruit.

XLIII.
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

XLIV.
And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas — the Grape!

XLV.
The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The subtle Alchemest that in a Trice
Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

XLVI.
Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as Snare?
A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a Curse — why, then, Who set it there?

XLVII.
But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub couch'd,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.

XLVIII.
For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

XLIX.
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too.

L.
The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd,
Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep,
They told their fellows, and to Sleep return'd.

LI.
Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside,
And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,
Is't not a shame — Is't not a shame for him
So long in this Clay suburb to abide?

LII.
But that is but a Tent wherein may rest
A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;
The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash
Strikes, and prepares it for another guest.

LIII.
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And after many days my Soul return'd
And said, "Behold, Myself am Heav'n and Hell."

LIV.
Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerg'd from, shall so soon expire.

LV.
While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyam and ruby vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to Thee — take that, and do not shrink.

LVI.
And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account, should lose, or know the type no more;
The Eternal Saki from the Bowl has pour'd
Millions of Bubbls like us, and will pour.

LVII.
When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh but the long long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As much as Ocean of a pebble-cast.

LVIII.
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

LIX.
The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes;
And he that toss'd Thee down into the Field,
He knows about it all — He knows — HE knows!

LX.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

LXI.
For let Philosopher and Doctor preach
Of what they will, and what they will not — each
Is but one Link in an eternal Chain
That none can slip, nor break, nor over-reach.

LXII.
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to it for help — for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

LXIII.
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

LXIV.
Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

LXV.
I tell You this — When, starting from the Goal,
Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal
Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung,
In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul.

LXVI.
The Vine has struck a fiber: which about
If clings my Being — let the Dervish flout;
Of my Base metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.

LXVII.
And this I know: whether the one True Light,
Kindle to Love, or Wrath — consume me quite,
One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.

LXVIII.
What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke
A conscious Something to resent the yoke
Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain
Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!

LXIX.
What! from his helpless Creature be repaid
Pure Gold for what he lent us dross-allay'd —
Sue for a Debt we never did contract,
And cannot answer — Oh the sorry trade!

LXX.
Nay, but for terror of his wrathful Face,
I swear I will not call Injustice Grace;
Not one Good Fellow of the Tavern but
Would kick so poor a Coward from the place.

LXXI.
Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou will not with Predestin'd Evil round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?

LXXII.
Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give — and take!

LXXIII.
Listen again. One Evening at the Close
Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose,
In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone
With the clay Population round in Rows.

LXXIV.
And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient cried —
"Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?"

LXXV.
Then said another — "Surely not in vain
My Substance from the common Earth was ta'en,
That He who subtly wrought me into Shape
Should stamp me back to common Earth again."

LXXVI.
Another said — "Why, ne'er a peevish Boy,
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;
Shall He that made the vessel in pure Love
And Fancy, in an after Rage destroy?"

LXXVII.
None answer'd this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
"They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"

LXXVIII:
"Why," said another, "Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
The luckless Pots he marred in making — Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well."

LXXIX.
Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh,
"My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
But, fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-by!"

LXXX.
So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,
The Little Moon look'd in that all were seeking:
And then they jogg'd each other, "Brother! Brother!
Now for the Porter's shoulder-knot a-creaking!"

LXXXI.
Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash my Body whence the Life has died,
And in a Windingsheet of Vine-leaf wrapt,
So bury me by some sweet Garden-side.

LXXXII.
That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare
Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air,
As not a True Believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.

LXXXIII.
Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong:
Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.

LXXXIV.
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore — but was I sober when I swore?
And then, and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.

LXXXV.
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honor — well,
I often wonder what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.

LXXXVI.
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

LXXXVII.
Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
One glimpse — If dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd
To which the fainting Traveller might spring,
As springs the trampled herbage of the field!

LXXXVIII.
Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits — and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

LXXXIX.
Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me — in vain!

XC.
And when like her, oh Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made one — turn down an empty Glass!

TAMAM SHUD