94
THE QUATRAINS OF
138.
Be not beguiled by world's insidious wiles;
foolish ones, ye know her tricks and guiles;
Your precious lifetime cast not to the winds;
Haste to seek wine, and court a sweetheart's smiles.
139.
Comrades! I pray you, physic me with wine,
Make this wan amber face like rubies shine,
And, if I die, use wine to wash my corpse,
And frame my coffin out of planks of vine!
140.
When Allah yoked the coursers of the sun,
And launched the Pleiades their race to run,
My lot was fixed in fate's high chancery;
Then why blame me for wrong that fate has done?
138. N.
139. C. L. N. A. B. I. Kahrbá, "amber," literally "attractor of straw." Rúy ĭ—izáfat before the epithet. Lumsden, ii. 259.
