Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Translated into English Verse by Omar KhayyámRather odd poem celebrating the theme, "Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die." Or maybe just drink for tomorrow we die.
If anyone accuses you, like Puddleglum, of being "too full of bobance and bounce and high spirits" and of needing something "to sober you down a bit," perhaps some sad lines like these would help:
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust Descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and—sans End!
Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And those that after a TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
"Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There."
....
Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd—"While you live,
Drink!—for once dead you never shall return."
Of course, if the point was to sober you down, maybe the poem is self-defeating. You'll be none too sober if you really take it's advice.
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