Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! That Youths sweet-scented Manuscript should close!

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring The Winter Garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly-and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on.

Yes, the first morning of creation wrote what the last dawn of reckoning shall read.

Old Khayyám, say you, is a debauchee;If only you were half so good as he!He sins no sins but gentle drunkenness,Great-hearted mirth, and kind adultery.But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue,The wintry soul that hates to hear a song,The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye,And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.

To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow; Counting on morrows breedeth bankrupt sorrow: O squander not this breath that Heaven hath lent thee; Make not too sure another breath to borrow.

I hide my grief, just like the blessed birds hide themselves when they are preparing to die, my love.