The Dream Called Life
From the Spanish of Pedro Calderon de la Barca
A dream it was in which I found myself.
And you that hail me now, then hailed me king,
In a brave palace that was all my own,
Within, and all without it, mine; until,
Drunk with excess of majesty and pride,
Methought I towered so big and swelled so wide
That of myself I burst the glittering bubble
Which my ambition had about me blown,
And all again was darkness. Such a dream
As this, in which I may be walking now,
Dispensing solemn justice to you shadows,
Who make believe to listen; but anon
Kings, princes, captains, warriors, plume and steel,
Aye, even with all your airy theatre,
May flit into the air you seem to rend
With acclamations, leaving me to wake
In the dark tower; or dreaming that I wake
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poem by Edward Fitzgerald
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The Meadows In Spring
'Tis a dull sight
To see the year dying,
When winter winds
Set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, oh! sighing.
When such a time cometh,
I do retire
Into and old room
Beside a bright fire:
Oh, pile a bright fire!
And there I sit
Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
While the wind sings—
Oh, drearily sings!
I never look out
Nor attend to the blast;
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poem by Edward Fitzgerald
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On Anne Allen
The wind blew keenly from the Western sea,
And drove the dead leaves slanting from the tree--
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith--
Heaping them up before her Father's door
When I saw her whom I shall see no more--
We cannot bribe thee, Death.
She went abroad the falling leaves among,
She saw the merry season fade, and sung--
Vanity of vanities the Preacher saith--
Freely she wandered in the leafless wood,
And said that all was fresh, and fair, and good--
She knew thee not, O Death.
She bound her shining hair across her brow,
She went into the garden fading now;
Vanity of vanities the Preacher saith--
And if one sighed to think that it was sere,
She smiled to think that it would bloom next year!
She feared thee not, O Death.
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poem by Edward Fitzgerald
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Old Song
TIS a dull sight
To see the year dying,
When winter winds
Set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, O sighing!
When such a time cometh
I do retire
Into an old room
Beside a bright fire:
O, pile a bright fire!
And there I sit
Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
While the wind sings--
O, drearily sings!
I never look out
Nor attend to the blast;
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poem by Edward Fitzgerald
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From The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, I: 1-3, V: 12-15, 19-24, 71-72
1
Wake! For the Sun, who scattered into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n and strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light.
2
Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
"When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshiper outside?"
3
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted--"Open, then, the Door!
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poem by Edward Fitzgerald
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From Omar Khayyam
I
A BOOK of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
Look to the blowing Rose about us--'Lo,
Laughing,' she says, 'into the world I blow,
At once the silken tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.'
And those who husbanded the Golden grain
And those who flung it to the winds like Rain
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
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poem by Edward Fitzgerald
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Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
I
AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
II
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
III
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted--"Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."
IV
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poem by Edward Fitzgerald
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