Ah, fill the Cup: - what boots it to repeat

How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:

Unborn TO-M0RROW, and dead YESTERDAY,

Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!

One Moment in Annihilation's Waste,

One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste -

The Stars are setting and the Caravan

Starts for the Dawn of Nothing - Oh, make haste!

How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit

Of This and That endeavour and dispute?

Better be merry with the fruitful Grape

Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.

You know, my Friends, how long since in my House

For a new Marriage I did make Carouse:

Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,

And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

For "Is" and "IS-NOT" though with Rule and Line,

And "UP-AND-DOWN" without, I could define,

I yet in all I only cared to know,

Was never deep in anything but - Wine.

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,

Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape

Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and

He bid me taste of it; and 'twas - the Grape!.

The Grape that can with Logic absolute

The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:

The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice

Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Edward Fitzgerald, First Edition