Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 1

The palace where Jamshid held his cup
The doe and the fox now rest and sup
Bahram who hunted game non-stop
Was hunted by death when his time was up.

I resolve daily that at dusk I shall repent
For a night with a cup full of wine spent.
In the presence of flowers, my resolve simply went
In such company, I only regret that I ever resolved to repent.

The caravan of life shall always pass
Beware that is fresh as sweet young grass
Let’s not worry about what tomorrow will amass
Fill my cup again, this night will pass, alas.

Happily I walked with the tavern down the line
Passed an old drunk, holding a bottle of wine
"Do you not fear God?" was reproach of mine
said, "Mercy is God’s sign, in silence I wine and dine."

Some in deep thought spirit seek
Some lost in awe, of doubt reek
I fear the voice, hidden but not weak
Cry out "awake! Both ways are oblique."

Like God, if this world I could control
Eliminating the world would be my role
I would create the world anew, whole
Such that the free soul would attain desired goal.

This cup was made by the Wise Lord
With love & care to the heights soared
The potter who shaped with such accord
To make and break the same clay, can also afford.

At all times, merrily try
To drink wine and in song cry
Millions of kings in silence lie
From coming of January and passing of July.

Drinking wine is my travail
Till my body is dead and stale
At my grave site all shall hail
Odor of wine shall prevail.

When the clay into a cup is molded
Its breaking, the drunk scolded;
Many limbs and heads are enfolded
Through whose love unfolded, by which decree folded?

Good and evil, our moral prison,
Joy and sorrow passing like season,
Fate in the way of logic and reason
Is the victim of far worse treason.

Lover of drunk and the outcast
Better than pious prayer and fast
Thou art the first and art the last
Caress if thou wilt, if thou wilt blast.

When the Maker formed nature
Why imperfect was the venture
If it is good, why departure
And if bad, why form capture?

This Universal wheel, this merry-go-round
In our imagination we have found
The sun a flame, in the Cosmic lantern bound
We are mere ghosts, revolving, the flame surround.

The rose claimed to be Jacob of grass and dirt
A red ruby resurrected with a green skirt
I said if this is so, show a sign of your hurt
Said just take a look at my bloody shirt.

Anxiously I began this course
With life my awe grew even worse
Unwillingly returned with force
What was the point, I ask my source.

In the wheel of fortune the unseen vine
Drink, be merry, wait your turn in line
When it is your turn, neither cry nor whine
Everyone must taste the same deadly wine.

O Life, you put many traps in my way
Dare to try, is what you clearly say
All that is, thy command must obey
You lead me away and call me astray.

Why treat thy slave so cold as ice?
Where is thy light to save me from vice?
Even with command of Paradise
Where is thy gift above my just price?

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