typifies their vain theories and prophecies. Then ever baffled by "the Veil thro' which I could not see," unraveling all knots but "the Master knot of Human Fate," old Omar despairs of a solution to the hopeless tangle—he is an alchemist, and endeavoring to wring the secret of life from the living plant, he sees his own life passing away meanwhile like the smoke from his furnace. So runs the Rubaiyat: But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's unopening Door, You gaze TO-DAY, while You are you—how then TO-MORROW when You shall be You no more? Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit Of This and That endeavor and dispute; Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape Than sadder after none, or bitter Fruit. ' Then again, in the manner of Pater's " Marius," does old KhayyAm follow the much-trodden, wine-strewn Epicurean paths, inclining to what is "here and now" rather than that behind the Veil, although in no such high and serious key as did Marius. Yesterday this Day's Madness did prepare To-morrow's Silence, Triumph or Despair; Drink 1 for you know not whence you came, nor why; Drink 1 for you know, not why you go, nor where. Then, in his vine-embowered garden by the water's edge, he quits the unequal struggle of this "predestined Plot of Dust and Soul" against Fate, of the helpless, impotent mind of old Omar against Destiny. But leave the wise to wrangle, and with me The Quarrel of the Universe let be, And in some corner of the Hubbub coucht Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee. Carlyle occupies some two pages in " Heroes and Hero- Worship '" - with a consideration of Dante's " Divina Comedia" as a Song. We might essay to follow the lead of the rugged worshipper of the Heroic in History, and devote some pages to dwelling upon Fitzgerald's "Rubaiyat " as a song, perhaps more strictly a sort of Nocturne of words. Somewhat in the
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