The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. | Page 6

Truth to the Unlovely, when to you?It were a rash Unwisdom to be Wise.
LXXXI
Oh, like the Smoke that rises and is gone,?Let your own Spirit lift from Dawn to Dawn?And so bestartle Ennui that at last?Even the Grave will quite forget to yawn!

LXXXII
As hooded Eve behind her rosy Bars?Her soft Kinoon betinkled to the Stars,?Again to the Tobacconist's I came?And stood among the Stogies and Cigars.
LXXXIII
Some were whose Scent exhaled the Asphodel,?And some whose Smoke gave forth a roseate Smell,?And some poor Weeds that told you at a Whiff?How they were made to Give Away, not Sell.
LXXXIV
One said, "And can no wiser Law revoke?The Edict that foredestined me to Smoke,?My stump to be a Byword and a Jest? -?But if a Jest I fail to see the Joke."
LXXXV
A Second murmured, "Surely we might learn?Some undiminished Anodyne to burn,?For ne'er a Smoker puffed a good Cigar?But wished Another Like It might return."
LXXXVI
After a momentary Silence spake?A Stogie of a bileful Pittsburg make;?"The One who puffs my Wrappings to the End?Will never ask my Memory to awake."
LXXXVII
Then spake a Panatela finely rolled,?"If to a fiery Doom I must be sold,?Then let it be my happy Fate to find?A high-born Mouth whose Teeth are filled with Gold."
LXXXVIII
An auburn Weed uprose as one surprised.?"If for a Martyr's Death I so am prized,?May not my hallowed Ashes be preserved?That Saint Cigar I may be canonized?"
LXXXIX
"Well," murmured One, "when in my ashen Shroud?My Stump descends to meet the shrieking Crowd,?I yet may know that in the Fire of Hell?There stands no Placard, 'Smoking Not Allowed.'"
XC
And while this corvine Clatter still endured?A lambent Flame, by fragrant Promise lured,?Crept in, as all the Inmates cried amain,?"The Shop's afire and we are Uninsured!"
XCI
Arise, then, Zamperina, Day grows old,?The Shepherd pipes his sundered Flocks to Fold,?Your Garments quail and ripple in the Chill,?Your pagan Nose empurples with the Cold.
XCII
The How is swiftly mingling with the When,?The What describes its Orbit's round, and then?Of Why or Which nor Mite nor Mote delays?To fall in Line and get mixed up again.
XCIII
I must not heed that elemental Whirl?Where Arc on Arc the train��d Planets swirl -?The Astronomic Marvels have no charm?For him who walks the Gloaming with his Girl.
XCIV
The Keeper of the Sky has hasped his Doors,?Forgetting Zal's accumulative Roars,?And drunk with Night's Elixir, prone he lies?In Warp of dreamless Sleep - and Woof of Snores.
XCV
So must I those soporic Echoes woo?When, all my intermittent Joyaunce through,?Each Thrill must be a Threnod, as I know?That They Who Kiss can teach me nothing New.
XCVI
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before?I swore, but Was I Smoking when I swore??And ever and anon I made Resolve?And sealed the holy Pledge - with One Puff More.
XCVII
O Thou who sought our Fathers to enslave?And ev'n the Pipe to Walter Raleigh gave,?I love you still for your Redeeming Vice?And shower Tobacco Leaves upon your Grave!
XCVIII
Then let the balmed Tobacco be my Sheath,?The ardent Weed above me and beneath,?And let me like a Living Incense rise,?A Fifty-Cent Cigar between my Teeth.
XCIX
Havana's Witch-fog murks my Horoscope?Until my dream-enamoured Senses grope?Towards the Light, where in her opal Shrine?Smiles Hopefulness, the great Reward of Hope.

C
Let those who to this daedal Valley throng?And by my tumid Ashes pass along,?Let them be glad with this consoling Thought:?I got a Market Value for my Song.
CI
And some expectant Devotee who knocks?At that poor House where once I rent my locks,?In vain may seek a Last Cigar and find?My Muse asleep within an empty Box.
Hammam
Notes
I - "Sours the Milk of Life;" thunderstorms, earthquakes and artificial commotions of the earth are popularly and quasi-scientifically believed to have the effect of turning milk from sweet to sour; so here the Milk of Life is soured by the sudden advent of the Brat of Death (Care, perhaps, who is said to have killed a cat on one occasion). By some critics it is held that the figure might have been enrichened by the substitution of the Cream of Life for the Milk of Life.
II- Gorgona is referred to but three times in the present work, in Rubs II, XXI and XXVI. Number II would lead us to believe that the poet used her figuratively as Sorrow or Remorse; but the text of XXI and XXVI point another conclusion. The latter Rubaiyat tell us forcefully that Gorgona was but too real and that her unloveliness was a sore trial to the fine attunement of the poet's nerves.
II - Such words as "tobacchanalian" (compounded from tobacco and bacchanalian) Lewis Carrol claimed as his own under the title of "portmanteau words," - another example of the antiquity of modernity.
VII - "The Early Worm is up to Catch the Fish;" the worm, caught as bait, will in turn serve as captor for some luckless fish. This, possibly, is the Bornese version of our own proverb, "The early