Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a collection of poems (of which there are about a thousand) attributed to the Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyám (1048-1123). "Rubaiyat" means "quatrains": verses of four lines.

Fitzgerald translation, version 1

• Morning 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.

• Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough
  A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse, and Thou
  Beside me singing in the Wilderness
  Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
  • Quatrain XI

• The Moving Finger writes, and having writ
  Moves on, nor all thy Piety nor Wit
  Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
  Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
  • Quatrain LI