Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 7

I sent my Soul through the Invisible, 
Some letter of that After-life to spell: 
And by and by my Soul return'd to me, 
And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell:"

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

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;

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays 
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days; 
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, 
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, 
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; 
And He that toss'd you down into the Field, 
He knows about it all--He knows--HE knows!

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.

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.

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

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.

I tell you this--When, started from the Goal, 
Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal 
Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung 
In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul.

The Vine had struck a fibre: 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.

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

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

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

Oh, Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin 
Beset the Road I was to wander in, 
Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round 
Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!

Oh, Thou who Man of baser Earth didst make, 
And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: 
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man 
Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!

As under cover of departing Day 
Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazan away, 
Once more within the Potter's house alone 
I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay. 

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