Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WITH OMAR, by CALE YOUNG RICE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WITH OMAR, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I sat with omar by the tavern door
Last Line: Would ask and answer -- trust and doubt and pray.
Subject(s): Death; Drinks & Drinking; Future Life; Soul; Dead, The; Wine; Retribution; Eternity; After Life


I sat with Omar by the Tavern door,
Musing rebelliously upon his Lore;
And soon with answers alternate we strove
Whether beyond Death Life has any shore.

"Come, fill the Cup," said he. "In the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling.
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter -- and the Bird is on the Wing."

"The Bird of Time?" I answered. "Then shall I,
Heavy with Wine, not fail to cross the Sky
Unto Eternity upon his wings --
And failing fall into the Gulf and die?"

"So for the Glories of this World sigh some
And some for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
But you, Friend, take the Cash -- the Credit leave,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!"

"But idly at the garish noisy Show
Spend all upon the Wine, the while I know
A possible Tomorrow may bring Thirst
For Drink but Credit then shall cause to flow?"

"Yea, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust unto Dust, and under dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and -- sans End."

"Into the Dust we shall descend -- we must.
But may the Soul not leave the crumbling Crust
In which it is engaged? To hope or to
Despair it will -- which is more wise or just?"

"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."

"Like snow it comes, to cool one burning day;
And like it goes -- for all our plea or sway.
But Wine, not bitter Tears, can ever purge
The vision it has brought to us away."

"But to this world we come and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the waste,
We know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing."

"True, little do we know of Why or Whence,
But is, forsooth, our Darkness evidence
There is no Light? The worm may see no star
Though Heaven with myriad multitudes be dense."

"But, all unasked, we're hither hurried whence?
And, all unasked, we're Whither hurried hence?
O, many a cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence."

Forbidden it is not. Or if Forbid
'Tis only by the Soul within us hid
That cries, 'Feed, feed me not on Wine alone,
For to Sublimer Banquets I am bid.'"

"Well oft I think that never blows so red
The rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her lap from some once lovely Head."

"If from the shapely Clay through with Life's throes
More beautiful spring, Hyacinth and Rose,
May the Great Gardener for the uprooted soul
Not find use sweeter than -- useless Repose?"

"We do not know -- so fill the cup that clears
Today of past regret and future fears:
Tomorrow! -- Why, Tomorrow we may be
Ourselves with yesterday's seven thousand years."

"There is no Cup to bring oblivion
More during than Regret and Fear -- no, none!
And Wine that's Wine today may often be
Marah before tomorrow's Sands have run."

"Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint and heard great argument
About it and about; but ever more
Came out by the same door wherein I went."

"The doors of Argument may lead nowhither,
Reason become a prison where may wither
From sunless eyes the Infinite, from hearts
All hope -- when their sojourn too long is thither."

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

"The Master-knot knows but the Master-hand,
That weaves or tangles many a Saturn-band
On the wide air. No sure unravelling,
This side of death, seems meant for us or planned."

"Yet if the Soul can fling the Dust aside
And naked on the air of heaven ride,
Wer't not a shame -- wer't not a shame for it
In this clay carcass crippled to abide?"

"No, for a day bound in our Dust may teach
More of the Saki's mind than we could reach
Through aeons under any earthless Sky --
May open through all Mystery a breach."

"You speak as if Existence closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has poured
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour."

"He will -- and prick them with the point of Death.
But in each Bubble dwells there not His Breath
That seems seeking to lift it toward the Sphere
Where lofty and alone He wandereth?"

"A Moment's Halt -- a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste --
And Lo! -- the phantom Caravan has reached
The Nothing it set out from -- Oh, make haste!"

"To quaff one cup? though well aware that we
Shall crave three million others -- then thrice three?
If the Well has a Master, will He say
'Taste' -- then deprive us of it utterly?"

"But see his Presence through Creation's Veins,
Running quicksilver-like eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Mah to Mahi; and
They change and perish all -- but He remains."

"Not surely! For, lie down to sleep and lo
The soul seems quenched in darkness -- is it so?
Shall we not rather trust what seemeth not
Of Death, until we know -- until we know?"

"So wastes the hour -- gone in the vain pursuit
Of This and That we strive o'er and dispute.
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, fruit."

"Aye; but how often is a Shadow thrown
Across our Cup -- the Shadow of the Unknown,
So filling it with Night we cannot drink
Or bide content with dim-lit earth alone."

"Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that on the branches sang --
Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows?"

"So does it seem -- no other joy like these!
Yet Summer comes, and Autumn's honored ease,
And Wintry Age oft feels the prescient sap
Of a New Spring, whose verdure shall not cease."

"Then well He who with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Will He with stern Predestined Evil round
Enmesh, and then impute my fall to sin?"

"He will not. If one evil we endure
To ultimate Debasing, oh be sure
'Tis not of Him predestined, and the sin
Not His nor ours -- but Fate's He could not cure."

So till the wan and early scent of day
I strove, then silent turned at last away,
Thinking how men in ages yet unborn
Would ask and answer -- trust and doubt and pray.





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