Omar Khayym

A Book of Verses undeneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness- Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow

And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, Lift not your hands to It for help for It As impotently moves as you or I.

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.

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

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, How Sultn after Sultn with his Pomp Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.

I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life spell, And by and by my Soul returned to me, And answered I Myself am Heaven and Hell.

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.

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 Wither, willy-nilly blowing.

We are no other than a moving row Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the Show.