description of the Roman Theater) discolored with the lurid reflex of
the Curtain suspended between the Spectator and the Sun. Omar, more
desperate, or more careless of any so complicated System as resulted
in nothing but hopeless Necessity, flung his own Genius and Learning
with a bitter or humorous jest into the general Ruin which their
insufficient glimpses only served to reveal; and, pretending sensual
pleasure, as the serious purpose of Life, only diverted himself with
speculative problems of Deity, Destiny, Matter and Spirit, Good and
Evil, and other such questions, easier to start than to run down, and
the pursuit of which becomes a very weary sport at last!

<6>Professor Cowell.

With regard to the present Translation. The original Rubaiyat (as,
missing an Arabic Guttural, these Tetrastichs are more musically
called) are independent Stanzas, consisting each of four Lines of
equal, though varied, Prosody; sometimes all rhyming, but oftener (as
here imitated) the third line a blank. Somewhat as in the Greek
Alcaic, where the penultimate line seems to lift and suspend the Wave
that falls over in the last. As usual with such kind of Oriental
Verse, the Rubaiyat follow one another according to Alphabetic
Rhyme--a strange succession of Grave and Gay. Those here selected are
strung into something of an Eclogue, with perhaps a less than equal
proportion of the "Drink and make-merry," which (genuine or not)
recurs over-frequently in the Original. Either way, the Result is sad
enough: saddest perhaps when most ostentatiously merry: more apt to
move Sorrow than Anger toward the old Tentmaker, who, after vainly
endeavoring to unshackle his Steps from Destiny, and to catch some
authentic Glimpse of TO-MORROW, fell back upon TO-DAY (which has
outlasted so many To-morrows!) as the only Ground he had got to stand