More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
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.
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face Lighting a little Hour or two—is gone.
Ah! my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears- To-morrow?—Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.
Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and the best That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest, Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, And one by one crept silently to Rest.
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!
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies; One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat How Time is slipping underneath our Feet: Unborn TO-MORROW and dead YESTERDAY, Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.
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.
Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits—and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, Lighting a little hour or two—is gone.
Of threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain—This Life flies; One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the Road, Which to discover we must travel too.
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.
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 not know whence you came, nor why: Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
