*I am now off my week-long jaunt on a Croatian literary yacht, but I'm still a little mind-blown at the spectacle of authors reading poetry to the public off a boat.
*The valiant crew are still out there right now, hamming it up off the deck. @brodknjizara
*It's a little-known fact – well, actually, it's a lie – that readers of BEYOND THE BEYOND are clamoring for more poetry on this blog. So, here's a pop favorite of the past ten centuries: Mr Omar Khayyam of Bukhara, mathematician, astronomer and, to judge by his quatrains, a major depressive with serious substance issues.
One Moment in Annihilation's Waste,
One moment, of the Well of Life to taste–
The Stars are setting, and the Caravan
Starts for the dawn of Nothing–Oh, make haste!
While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to thee–take that, and do not shrink.
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust Descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and–sans End!
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seemed–and then no more of THEE and ME.
For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to IT for help–for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
(((Now, there are those who claim that Omar's revived fame was almost entirely due to the efforts of his 19th-century English translator, Edward Fitzgerald. And there are those who further allege that Fitzgerald took such translatory liberties with Khayyam's texts that he basically made them up. But, at least Fitzgerald was hard to discourage. Check out his two efforts at Khayyam's best-known work.)))
(((First draft:)))
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse–and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness–
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
(((Second and final draft:)))
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread–and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness–
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
