Omar Khayyam (484) “Summer’s new warmth has melted memories of last December”

Juan Cole 12/03/2012

You’re fast on your feet, server,
and dawn is breaking.
Let’s have another song,
and bring more wine!
For summer’s new warmth has melted memories
of last December,
and of the hundred thousand
famous kings and leaders
who have been laid
beneath the hard, cold earth
these past few months.

Translated by Juan Cole
from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 484

cf. Fitzgerald i, viii

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment and Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires. Follow him at @jricole.