The Persian Sufi poet Omar Khayyam (1048-1031? CE) is mostly known – and largely misunderstood – through the paraphrasal translations of the Victorian writer Edward Fitzgerald, which portray him as a sybarite and a fatalist. For the traveller on the Sufi path, however, his poems compress great spiritual insight into just a few words. For more about Omar Khayyam, see this previous post.

I know all the theories of Being and non-Being,
I know the inner meaning of the Way.
With all this knowledge, yet I’m good for nothing
unless I’m drunk and under Love I sway.

* * *

Under the dust beneath your feet,
          many sleepers lie.
Without work, lover, friend,
          vanished for all time.
Come drink the wine, and stay awake
        The secret is so plain.
That when a tulip withers here,
          it does not bloom again.

Tr. Mary O’Connell and Roshanek Vahdani