Page:Quatrains of Omar Khayyam (tr. Whinfield, 1883).djvu/238

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182
THE QUATRAINS OF

270.

We are but chessmen, destined, it is plain,
That great chess player, Heaven, to entertain;
    It moves us on life's chess-board to and fro,
And then in death's box shuts up again.


271.

You ask what is this life so frail, so vain,
'Tis long to tell, yet will I make it plain;
    'Tis but a breath blown from the vasty deeps,
And then blown back to those same deeps again!


272.

To-day to heights of rapture have I soared.
Yea, and with drunken Maghs pure wine adored;
    I am become beside myself, and rest
In that pure temple, "Am not I your Lord?"

270.   L. N. B.   Hakíkatí, see Bl., Prosody 3.

271.   C. L. N. A. I. J.   Some MSS. read naksh.   Deeps, i. e. the ocean of Not-being.