09-19-2016, 12:13 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-19-2016, 12:42 AM by Dekalb_Blues.)
Think of this world as modeled at your whim,
Perfectly trimmed for you from east to west;
Yet know yourself a snowdrift on the sand
Heaped for two days or three, then thawed and gone.
In agitation I was brought to birth
And learned nothing from life but wonder at it;
Reluctantly we leave, still uninformed
Why in the world we came, or went, or were.
Were the choice mine to come, should I have come?
Or to become? What might I have become?
What better fortune could I then have chanced on
Than not to come, become, or even be?
Dear lad, steeped as you are in Mysteries,
Why should you load your heart with nameless cares?
Let projects fade away; disport yourself
In the brief hour when life detains you here.
Rise up, why mourn this transient world of men?
Pass your whole life in gratitude and joy.
Had humankind been freed from womb and tomb,
When would your turn have come to live and love?
Poor ball, struck by Fate's heavy polo-mallet,
Running whichever way it drives you, numbed
Of sense, though He who set you on your course,
He knows, He knows, He knows.
Could my heart know, in life, life's hidden secrets,
Death could inform me of God's hidden secrets.
Since I know nothing of myself today,
What can I know tomorrow, after death?
If only I controlled God's Universe,
Would I not wipe away these faulty Heavens
And build from nothing a true Paradise
Where all souls could achieve their hearts' desire?
Fools, with damnation as your destiny,
Sentenced to fuel the eternal fires of Hell,
How long will you still plead for Omar's pardon,
Nudging his mercy from the Merciful?
Misguided foes call me philosopher--
God knows this is the one thing I am not.
I am even less: in such a nest of sorrows
I cannot tell you even who I am.
Man's brain has never solved the eternal Why
Nor foraged past the frontier set for thought.
All intellect be sure, proves nugatory,
However hard we either teach or learn.
Not you, not I, can learn the inmost secret:
The eternal Cypher proves too hard to break.
Behind God's Curtain voices babble of us
But when it parts, where then shall we two be?
Some ponder long on doctrine and belief,
Some teeter between certitude and doubt.
Suddenly out of hiding leaps the Guide
With: 'Fools, the Way is neither that nor this.'
Conceal the mystery revealed to you
From all nonentities, likewise from fools:
In carefulness approach men's inner selves,
Letting none intercept your scrutiny.
[Quatrains from The Original Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayaam: A New Translation with Critical Commentaries, by Robert Graves and Omar Ali-Shah (NY: 1968) -- I happen to be editing an ebook version of this work, which deals with an 800-year-old uncorrupted manuscript of an important collection of poetic stanzas by the great 11th/12th-century Persian Sufi scientist and poet Omar Khayaam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam Cheers ]
Perfectly trimmed for you from east to west;
Yet know yourself a snowdrift on the sand
Heaped for two days or three, then thawed and gone.
In agitation I was brought to birth
And learned nothing from life but wonder at it;
Reluctantly we leave, still uninformed
Why in the world we came, or went, or were.
Were the choice mine to come, should I have come?
Or to become? What might I have become?
What better fortune could I then have chanced on
Than not to come, become, or even be?
Dear lad, steeped as you are in Mysteries,
Why should you load your heart with nameless cares?
Let projects fade away; disport yourself
In the brief hour when life detains you here.
Rise up, why mourn this transient world of men?
Pass your whole life in gratitude and joy.
Had humankind been freed from womb and tomb,
When would your turn have come to live and love?
Poor ball, struck by Fate's heavy polo-mallet,
Running whichever way it drives you, numbed
Of sense, though He who set you on your course,
He knows, He knows, He knows.
Could my heart know, in life, life's hidden secrets,
Death could inform me of God's hidden secrets.
Since I know nothing of myself today,
What can I know tomorrow, after death?
If only I controlled God's Universe,
Would I not wipe away these faulty Heavens
And build from nothing a true Paradise
Where all souls could achieve their hearts' desire?
Fools, with damnation as your destiny,
Sentenced to fuel the eternal fires of Hell,
How long will you still plead for Omar's pardon,
Nudging his mercy from the Merciful?
Misguided foes call me philosopher--
God knows this is the one thing I am not.
I am even less: in such a nest of sorrows
I cannot tell you even who I am.
Man's brain has never solved the eternal Why
Nor foraged past the frontier set for thought.
All intellect be sure, proves nugatory,
However hard we either teach or learn.
Not you, not I, can learn the inmost secret:
The eternal Cypher proves too hard to break.
Behind God's Curtain voices babble of us
But when it parts, where then shall we two be?
Some ponder long on doctrine and belief,
Some teeter between certitude and doubt.
Suddenly out of hiding leaps the Guide
With: 'Fools, the Way is neither that nor this.'
Conceal the mystery revealed to you
From all nonentities, likewise from fools:
In carefulness approach men's inner selves,
Letting none intercept your scrutiny.
[Quatrains from The Original Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayaam: A New Translation with Critical Commentaries, by Robert Graves and Omar Ali-Shah (NY: 1968) -- I happen to be editing an ebook version of this work, which deals with an 800-year-old uncorrupted manuscript of an important collection of poetic stanzas by the great 11th/12th-century Persian Sufi scientist and poet Omar Khayaam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam Cheers ]