Omar Khayyam - [10] With me along the strip of Herbage strown

November 16, 2009

From Ivan

Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --

[10] With me along the strip of Herbage strown

By Omar Khayyam(11th Century)

English version by Edward FitzGerald

With me along the strip of Herbage strownThat just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot --And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne!

-- from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyam / Translated by Edward FitzGerald

Amazon.com / Photo by Andy Hay /

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Thought for the Day:

In every love, we love the Beloved.

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Hi Alan -Omar Khayyam was best known in his time as a mathematician and astronomer. His theorems are still studied by mathematicians today. His poetry really only became widely read when Edward FitzGerald collected several quatrains (rubaiyat) that were attributed to Khayyam and translated them into English as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.The common view in the West of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is that it is a collection of sensual love poems. Although some scholars debate this question, many people assert that Omar Khayyam was a Sufi, as well as a poet and mathematician, and that his Rubaiyat can only be truly understood using the language of mystical metaphor.==I've always liked this quatrain from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. With its lyric language, it beautifully evokes that mystic stillpoint in which all polarities are reconciled and

balanced.Khayyam invites us to walk with him "along the strip of Herbage strown" -- that slender path of life -- "That just divides the desert" -- the barren places of the untended soul -- "from the sown" -- those places of the mind so heavily cultivated and patterned that, though it contains life, it has become artificial. It is the wild place, the natural place, the place of uncontained life in between the two we must find.In this place, the "name of Slave and Sultan is forgot." In this state of spiritual poise, all dichotomies, social divisions, mental dissections, and perceptual separations fall away. No one kneels below you and no one stands above you; everyone and everything profoundly IS, and it is all ONE.Ivan

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.

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