Some Readings of Omar Khayyam. mood of Chopin perhaps in one of those yearning, Poli minor noctrunes, runs the Eclogue which Fitzgerald's "RI baiyat " form, through all the Tentmaker's motif of Ros Scented Spring and Vine-clad Garden that ever-recurrir minor mood, as he contemplates immutable Fate, inexorab Death, Necessity as the philosophers have it. Vedder h; depicted the mood well, he typifies it, Destiny, as an all-d vouring Sphinx stretched over the remains of creation—l Omar it is the Destroyer, the Master Fate. Whose secret Presence through creation's veins Running Quicksilver-like, eludes your pains, Taking all shapes from Mali to Mai; and They change and perish all—but He remains. Then comes the Lento mcestoso finale to our nocturne verse, the sigh of all. Old Khayyam, after vainly trying disentangle his steps from Fate, and "having failed of findi any Providence but Destiny, and any world but this," vie implacable Death with the pathetic but heroic stoicism of Epicurean and a man unafraid, in those last verses: Ah, with the Grape my fading life provide, And wash the Body whence the Life has died, And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf, By some not unfrequented Garden side. That ev'n my buried Ashes, such a Snare Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air, As not a True believer passing by But shall be overtaken unawares. But still hoping for a future existence if only in the hear of his companions, the notturno ends in the plaintively cou ageous notes of the last two "Rubaiyat:" Yon rising moon that looks for us again— How oft hereafter will she wax and wane: How oft hereafter rising look for us Through this same Garden, and for one in vain! And when like her, Oh Saki I you shall pass Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass, And in your joyous errand reach the Spot Where I made One—turn down an Empty Glass !
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