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.

Dreaming when Dawn's Soft 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.'

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.'

Now the New Year reviving old Desires, / The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, / Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough / Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose, / And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows; / But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, / And many a Garden by the Water blows.

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, / A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou / Beside me singing in the Wilderness— / Oh, 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 Promise 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 / As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon / Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon, / Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, / Lighting a little hour or two—is gone.

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing / Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing; / And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, / I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

What, without asking, hither hurried Whence? / And, without asking, Whither hurried hence! / Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine / Must drown the memory of that insolence!

Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate / I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, / And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; / But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.

There was the Door to which I found no Key; / There was the Veil through which I might not see: / Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee / There was—and then no more of Thee and Me.

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.

For I remember stopping by the way / To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay: / And with its all-obliterated Tongue / It murmur'd—'Gently, Brother, gently, pray!'

Listen again. One evening at the Close / Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose, / In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone / With the clay Population round in Rows.

Said one among them—'Surely not in vain / My substance of the common Earth was ta'en / And to this Figure moulded, to be broke, / Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again?'

Then said another—'Surely not in vain / Hath love poured through this fragile clay pain; / He that made the vessel out of love / Will never cast it down in cold disdain.'

Yon rising Moon that looks for us again— / How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; / How oft hereafter rising look for us / Through this same Garden—and for one in vain!

And when like her, O Saki, thou shalt pass / Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass, / And in thy joyous errand reach the spot / Where I made One—turn down an empty Glass!