Forget "The Waste Land," Let's Get Wasted!

So it's Omar Khayyam's birthday, I may as well include some of the winewomensongs he was so good at. You know the whole "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" bit? Omar majored in it. Kind of like Bluto in "Animal House."


Sing it with me now:  "A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,/ A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou/Beside me singing in the Wilderness—/ Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"

Excerpts from The Rubaiyat

Omar Khayyam, trans. Edward Fitzgerald

 I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
 Articulation answer'd, once did live,
   And merry-make; and the cold Lip I kiss'd
 How many Kisses might it take—and give.


 For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
 I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
   And with its all obliterated Tongue
 It murmur'd—"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!"


 Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat
 How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
   Unborn TO-MORROW 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.