(TO THE OMAR KHAYYAM CLU <br /> <br />Great Omar, here to-night we drain a bowl <br />Unto thy long-since transmigrated soul, <br />Ours all unworthy in thy place to sit, <br />Ours still to read in life's enchanted scroll. <br /> <br />For us like thee a little hour to stay, <br />For us like thee a little hour of play, <br />A little hour for wine and love and song, <br />And we too turn the glass and take our way. <br /> <br />So many years your tomb the roses strew, <br />Yet not one penny wiser we than you, <br />The doubts that wearied you are with us still, <br />And, Heaven be thanked! your wine is with us too. <br /> <br />For, have the years a better message brought <br />To match the simple wisdom that you taught: <br />Love, wine and verse, and just a little bread-- <br />For these to live and count the rest as nought? <br /> <br />Therefore, Great Omar, here our homage deep <br />We drain to thee, though all too fast asleep <br />In Death's intoxication art thou sunk <br />To know the solemn revels that we keep. <br /> <br />Oh, had we, best-loved Poet, but the power <br />From our own lives to pluck one golden hour, <br />And give it unto thee in thy great need, <br />How would we welcome thee to this bright bower! <br /> <br />O life that is so warm, 'twas Omar's too; <br />O wine that is so red, he drank of you: <br />Yet life and wine must all be put away, <br />And we go sleep with Omar--yea, 'tis true. <br /> <br />And when in some great city yet to be <br />The sacred wine is spilt for you and me, <br />To those great fames that we have yet to build, <br />We'll know as little of it all as he.<br /><br />Richard Le Gallienne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/omar-khayyam/
