Page:Quatrains of Omar Khayyam (tr. Whinfield, 1883).djvu/86

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30
THE QUATRAINS OF

42.

Behold these cups! Can He who deigned to make them,
In wanton freak let ruin overtake them,
    So many shapely feet and hands and heads,—
What love drives Him to make, what wrath to break them?


43.

Death's terrors spring from baseless fantasy,
Death yields the tree of immortality;
    Since 'Isa breathed new life into my soul,
Eternal death has washed its hands of me!


44.

Like tulips in the Spring your cups lift up,
And, with a tulip-cheeked companion, sup
    With joy your wine, or e'er this azure wheel
With some unlooked-for blast upset your cup.


42.   C. N. A. B. I. J.   Piyálăē, a cup.   So Job, "Thy hands have made me, yet thou dost destroy me."


43.   L. N.   Meaning the Sufi doctrine of Baká ba'd ul faná.   See Gulshan i Raz, p. 31.


44.   C. L. N. A. I. J.