Wake! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav’n, and strikes
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light.
The published poets are passed around and re-posted like popcorn on the internet. I have told myself to present original unpublished material but sometime the need to share true greatness of the past overwhelms me. This is published in the hope you will visit and read, from Persia, Omar Khayyám (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) and The Rubaiyat. I was given a copy when I was young. It is a prized possession. If you ever are in that bookstore looking for a book of verse that can make a difference in a life, this book made an difference in mine.
Here is another excerpt:
Said one among them — “Surely not in vain
My substance of the common Earth was ta’en
And to this Figure moulded, to be broke,
Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again”.
Then said a Second — “Ne’er a peevish Boy
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy,
And He that with his hand the Vessel made
Will surely not in after Wrath destroy”.
After a momentary silence spake
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make;
“They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?”
Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot —
I think a Sufi pipkin-waxing hot —
“All this of Pot and Potter — Tell me then,
Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?”
“Why,” said another, “Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
The luckless Pots he marr’d in making — Pish!
He’s a Good Fellow, and ’twill all be well”.
