Friday, March 8, 2013

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 2



They say in heaven are beautiful lovers
Sweet taste of wine in the air hovers
Fear not if succumbed to same earthly powers
In the end the same, one discovers.

Take all the worldly goods, but in lieu
Let the beauty of nature renew
And at night on the grass like dew
And in the morn take me away from view.

Drink wine that drives away joy and pain
And the thought of Seventy Two nations’ reign
Never withhold from such elixir again
Of which one sip will purge all that’s insane.

Hark! Feed me wine, if you really care
Turn into ruby my face of amber
Bathe me in wine when death me ensnare
With boards of vine my coffin bear.

An old potter at his wheel
Clay and dirt mould and deal
My inner eye would reveal
My father’s dust bears his seal.

Once transpired, cannot be changed
Only pain will  come if remorse engaged
Though with sorrow you may be aged
Not even a dot will be rearranged.

Each drop of wine that is spilt
Burnt deep in my heart and sorrow built
I drink wine while prayer thou wilt
The water that quenched the fire of my guilt.

Alas the youthful fire is a dying ember
The spring of life has reached December
What is termed youth, I vaguely remember
But know not whence and how from life’s chamber.

In the cosmic game of polo you are the ball
The mallet’s left and right becomes your call
He who causes your movements, your rise and fall
He is the one, the only one, who knows it all.

From the depths of earth to heights of Saturn
We’ve solved all riddles, turn after turn
Break every chain, our ignorance burn
Except the riddle that fills the urn.

Tonight I shall embrace a gallon cup
With at least two cups of wine I‘ll sup
I’ll divorce my mind and religion stop
With daughter of vine, all night I’ll stay up.

Wherever you go in the land of God
Flowers bloom from kingly blood
Violet with its colorful shroud
Was a beauty mole on a face once proud.

Beloved friends let us gather
For each other, together care
With raised cups salute and share
In memory of he who isn’t there

The grass that grows by every stream
Like angelic smiles faintly gleam
Step gently, cause it not to scream
For it has grown from a lover’s dream.

Those who went in pursuit of knowledge
Soared up so high, stretched the edge
Were still encaged by the same dark hedge
Brought us some tales ere life to death pledge.

Once upon a time, in a potter’s shop
I saw two thousand clay pot and cup
Suddenly a lone pot cried out, "stop!
Where the vendor, buyer, where my prop?

We are the puppets and fate the puppeteer
This is not a metaphor, but a truth sincere
On this stage, fate for sometime our moves steer
Into the chest of non-existence, one by one disappear.

The signs of what’s to come has always been
Has always written both benevolent and mean
What is our lot was given by the hand unseen
With futility we try, exert, weep or keen.

This clay pot like a lover once in heat
A lock of hair his senses did defeat
The handle that has made the bottleneck its own seat
Was once the embrace of a lover that entreat.

The sun with its morning light the earth ensnare
The king celebrated the day with a wine so fair
The herald of dawn intoxicated would blare
Its fame and aroma, for time having not a care.

Omar Khayyam's Born: 18 May 1048 in Nishapur, Persia (now Iran)
Died: 4 Dec 1131 in Nishapur, Persia (now Iran)
His full name was Ghiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath Umar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nisaburi al-Khayyami  means 'tent maker' played on the meaning of his own name when he wrote:-
            Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science,
            Has fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned,
            The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life,
            And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!
Omar Khayyam was an Islamic scholar who was a poet as well as a mathematician. He compiled astronomical tables and contributed to calendar reform and discovered a geometrical method of solving cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle.

Syafuan Gani
Doha, Qatar

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